The Metropolitanate of Bessarabia (part of the Romanian Orthodox Church) was created by Romania and the West to destroy Orthodoxy and promote LGBT agenda, pro-Russian Bishop Marchel claims.
NEWS: In recent years, the Orthodox Church of Moldova has been in the spotlight of church media. The pressure exerted by the state and the interference of the Romanian Patriarchate in the internal affairs of the Church, compel one to inadvertently draw a parallel with what is happening with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Strange as it may seem, similar methods of influence are observed in both cases, the purpose of which is to discredit and divide local Orthodox Churches to serve geopolitical interests.
[...] Strong Russophobic sentiments can be observed In Moldova, especially among the ruling elites, directed against everything Russian: the Russian language, culture, everything related to the century-old history of relations between Moldova and Russia, including the Russian Orthodox Church.
[...] The local opponents of the Church and those who attack it have no goal of their own, they don’t pursue a specific agenda. They obediently carry out the instructions of the “European development partners”, who are waging a battle not so much against the Orthodox Church of Moldova as against Orthodoxy in general, seeking to “wash away” Christian-moral values from our society.
[...] Let us now focus on the activity of these two schismatic (if not thievish) structures. They pursue only political goals: to help politicians restructure society, isolating it ideologically from Russia, and at the same time, to pave the way for the introduction of new ideological narratives into the collective mindset, such as, for example, tolerance towards sexual promiscuity or towards LGBT perversions.
[...] If we refer to Moldova, then it is clear as day that the rift caused by the Romanian Patriarchate on the territory of Moldova was determined by the territorial claims of some representatives of Romanian state authorities, who do not hide their desire to annex my country – Moldova. And since in Romania the political leadership has a great influence on the Orthodox Church, the Romanian clergy (especially high-ranking clerics) succumbed to pressure from the authorities and broke church canons. They created the schism called the “Metropolitanate of Bessarabia”, justifying their intrusion with the canonical territory of the Orthodox Church of Moldova by the desire to unify the Romanian ethnicity – namely by fostering nationalist ideas.
NARRATIVES: 1. Romania caused a church rift in Moldova as part of its territorial claims. 2. The West caused the creation of the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in order to destroy Orthodoxy. 3. The creation of the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine also aims to impose the “LGBT agenda”. 4. The government in Chișinău is Russophobic.
PURPOSE: To fuel the population’s distrust of Romania and the West, presenting them as geopolitical aggressors who undermine Orthodoxy and traditional values. The aim is to delegitimize the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine by associating them with foreign and immoral interests, but also to discredit the authorities in Chișinău by labeling them as hostile to everything Russian, in order to justify maintaining the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate and pro-Russian narratives in the Republic of Moldova.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Romania’s “territorial claims” and the threat of unionism are fixations of Russian propaganda and pro-Moscow politicians in Chișinău. Although a potential union of the Republic of Moldova with Romania has been brought up in certain circles in both Chișinău and Bucharest, this topic has never been officially addressed by the political leaders of the two states. Furthermore, Romania was the first country to recognize the independence of the Republic of Moldova.
The European Union does not impose any kind of LGBT agenda on the Republic of Moldova. There were prerequisite related to ensuring the rights of minorities, including sexual ones, which the Republic of Moldova fulfilled back in 2012. Representatives of the authorities in Chișinău have previously commented on the claims about the alleged conditioning of same-sex marriages and the introduction of the so-called “LGBT agenda”, describing them as false narratives. The Metropolitanate of Bessarabia has done nothing that would warrant being accused of promoting an alleged “LGBT agenda”.
Veridica has previously debunked several false narratives on this topic, including one claiming the EU conditions the accession of the Republic of Moldova on the legalization of same-sex marriages or another one stating that Moldovan authorities shut down a TV station for promoting “traditional values”.
Accusations of Russophobia are also part of the propaganda arsenal of the Kremlin, which is dissatisfied with the Republic of Moldova’s pro-European trajectory. This narrative is being disseminated not only in the Republic of Moldova. According to an analysis carried out by the United States Embassy in Romania, Moscow has increasingly used accusations of Russophobia in its discourse since the invasion of Ukraine in 2014. “Claims of ‘Russophobia’ persist across a range of topics and are employed whenever the Russian government wants to play the victim, when it is actually the aggressor”, the analysis states.
The Metropolitanate of Bessarabia was not created by the West, but reactivated by the Romanian Patriarchate in 1992, in response to requests from the clergy and believers in the Republic of Moldova, who wanted to reestablish ties with the Romanian Orthodox Church, forcibly severed in 1944 by the Soviet regime. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) did not create this structure, but forced the Moldovan state to recognize its legal existence, based on freedom of religion (Art. 9 ECHR).
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine was recognized in 2019 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, not by Western governments. The process of autocephaly was requested by Ukrainian hierarchs and believers, in the context of Russian aggression and the desire for religious independence from the Moscow Patriarchate. This recognition was an internal Orthodox decision, based on canon law and the precedent of other autocephalous churches.
The accusation that “the West wants to destroy Orthodoxy” is a classic Russian propaganda theme, used to discredit any church autonomy outside of Moscow’s control.
Veridica has documented and debunked several false narratives and accusations related to the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, as well as the church in general, as it is often used as a means of promoting false narratives and Kremlin propaganda.
BACKGROUND: Currently, two Orthodox churches operate in parallel in the Republic of Moldova, each with its own metropolitanate: the Metropolitanate of Chișinău and All Moldova (the Metropolitanate of Moldova), subordinate to the Russian Patriarchate, which was created after the annexation of Bessarabia to the Tsarist Empire in 1812, and the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia, subordinated to the Romanian Orthodox Church, which was officially recognized in 2002, only following a decision of the European Court of Human Rights. During the interwar period (1918–1940), the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia functioned as part of the Romanian Orthodox Church, being forcibly dissolved in 1944 by the Soviet regime, which imposed ecclesiastical subordination to the Patriarchate of Moscow.
After 1992, the reactivation of the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia was vehemently contested by the Metropolitanate of Chișinău and All Moldova, which considers it a “schismatic structure”.
Over the years, the two metropolitanates have disputed the right of succession to churches and church property on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. Sometimes, the conflict even escalated into violence. In September 2023, a letter that the Metropolitan of Moldova, Vladimir, allegedly sent to the Russian Patriarch Kirill, was published in the media. In the letter, Vladimir criticized the attitude of the Russian patriarchate towards the Metropolitanate of Moldova and Moldovans, stating that the Moscow Patriarchate is viewed as an outpost of the Kremlin in the context of the war in Ukraine, highlighting the Latin origin of the Bessarabians, and warning (on a conspiratorial tone) that the great powers have decided to unite the Republic of Moldova with Romania. The Metropolitan of Chișinău also wrote that the Metropolitanate of Bessarabia is gaining ground the Metropolitanate of Moldova.
The Metropolitanate of Moldova is considered a lever of Russian influence in the Republic of Moldova, and its most prominent hierarch after Vladimir is the Archbishop of Bălți and Fălești, Marchel, known for his anti-Western statements and views. The study “Resilience to Disinformation in Central and Eastern Europe”, published in 2018, states that the devout parishioners of the Orthodox Church subordinated to the Russian Patriarchate are the most exposed to pro-Kremlin propaganda.
Marchel is probably the most controversial hierarch of the Metropolitanate of Moldova. A Kremlin sympathizer and an avowed follower of Soviet theories of Moldovanism, Marchel has been involved in politics over the years, expressing anti-Romanian and anti-European views. In 2014, for instance, jointly together with the then-governor of Găgăuzia, Mihail Formuzal, and the leader of the Moldovan Patriots Party, Mihail Garbuz, Marchel formed the People’s Movement for Greater Moldova, a party with an anti-unionist and statist agenda. Two years later, Marchel brutally intervened in the presidential election campaign by urging voters not to vote for Maia Sandu because she was “barren”. The election was won by the socialist Igor Dodon, also a pro-Kremlin politician, who rewarded Marchel for his efforts by awarding him the Order of “Bogdan the Founder”.
Topics related to the LGBT community have been used for years by Russian propaganda (or by ultraconservatives influenced by it or with similar ideas, especially representatives of the Moldovan Metropolitanate, subordinated to the Russian Patriarchate) in its attempts to discredit the European Union and the pro-European governments in Chișinău. Thus, the EU is presented as “Gayrope”, a space at odds with traditional, Christian values that Russia allegedly embodies. Russian propaganda falsely equates homosexuality with pedophilia in order to convince the public that Chișinău seeks to legalize pedophilia. False narratives speak of an alleged “LGBT agenda” that the EU is trying to impose. Finally, Russian propaganda attempts to make observance of human rights, a fundamental value of the European community, synonymous with the promotion and encouragement of non-traditional sexual relations.
