Bucharest, November 11, 2020
Photo: ziaruldeiasi.ro
In preparation for the upcoming Parliamentary general elections on December 6, the Romanian Orthodox Church has issued 10 recommendations for ensuring a responsible and vote.
While the Holy Synod does not tell its flock who to vote for, it does urge citizens to make choices based on their Orthodox faith.
“The Romanian Orthodox Church encourages the participation of believers in the social life of the community, including by expressing the right and responsible vote for the election of its representatives in state legislative forums, while recommending consideration of the country's good and promoting Christian values in society,” reads the pastoral recommendations, reports Romania Insider.
In order to assess the various candidates, the Church offers the following religious and social criteria:
“1. showing faith in God and responsibility towards the community;
2. defense of religious freedom and support for the Church's spiritual and social activities;
3. respect for the human person and promoting the culture of life: promoting the traditional, natural family, made up of man and woman, meant to conceive other lives; implementation of policies against abortion, euthanasia, human embryo research, cloning;
4. promoting a comprehensive national education that combines intellectual knowledge with moral and spiritual formation;
5. defending and promoting the physical, mental, and moral/spiritual health of the Romanian people;
6. poverty reduction, economic development and population growth of Romania;
7. defending and promoting the national cultural and spiritual heritage;
8. the protection of natural resources, protection of the environment, and development of agriculture, as bases of responsibility for the present and future generations;
9. supporting the Romanian communities around Romania's borders and diaspora, as well as promoting projects to encourage Romanians to return to Romania;
10. defending and promoting with dignity the interests of the Romanian people, externally and internally.”
The Church has clashed with the government recently due to what it considered excessively rigid and biased quarantine restrictions. The traditional October pilgrimages in honor St. Parascheva in Iași and St. Demetrius the New in Bucharest were both practically banned. While the feasts annually draw tens of thousands of Orthodox faithful from throughout Romania and the Orthodox world, no one was permitted to enter the respective cities for the feasts this year.
The measures greatly grieved the hierarchs and faithful of the Romanian Church. Patriarch Daniel stated that, “Banning believers who do not live in Iași from attending this year’s pilgrimage to St. Parascheva is a disproportionate, discriminatory measure taken without prior consultation with the Romanian Orthodox Church.”
Concerning education that combines an intellectual, moral, and spiritual formation, the Church successfully opposed the introduction of mandatory sex education earlier this year, arguing that “The compulsory enrolling of pupils in sex education programs is an attack on the children’s innocence, preventing their natural development and marking them for life.”
