Secret police harassment campaign underway against churches in Moldova

Under attack: Churches in Moldova are harassed by secret service personnel in the latest crackdown against religious freedom

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times / Forum 18) - Investigative reporter Felix Corley from Norway's Forum 18 News Service has found that Moldova's expulsion of four priests and a nun is part of a campaign of harassment of the Bessarabian Orthodox Church. Also included in the harassment campaign is a series of church check-ups by both the Moldovan police and the country's intelligence agency, the so-called Information and Security Service (SIS).

The religious crackdown is not just restricted to the Bessarabian Orthodox faith. Orthodox parishes under the Moscow and Kiev Patriarchates have also faced harassment, and the harsh methods have been applied to a Jehovah's Witness congregation in Moldova as well. While authorities claim that police check-ups aimed to catch illegal immigrants, leaders of the religious communities state that officials were much more interested in the functioning of congregations, Forum 18 reported on Tuesday.

More than 60 Bessarabian parish priests have faced intrusive check-ups in recent days, based on orders from Moldova's Prime Minister. Churches were raided without prior warning by police officers and plainclothes agents from the Information and Security Service (SIS), Moldova's secret police.

" - The Interior Ministry sent police officers to check up on how our parishes function and whether they have registration," Deacon Andrei Deleu, the Bessarabian Metropolitanate's head of chancellery, said on 23 January. "Some of the check-ups went on for up to two hours." Officers said that "they have instructions from the Prime Minister."

Deleu said the check-ups began in Ungheni District of central Moldova, where some thirty parishes transferred their allegiance from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Bessarabian Metropolitanate in 2006. The check-ups then spread to parishes in other parts of Moldova, with the most recent in Hincesti District south-west of the capital on about 21 January. He added that police never told parish priests if they found anything.

Secret police visits

A Bessarabian priest from a parish in Moldova's poverty-stricken Ungheni District, Ion Porcescu, received one of the earliest visits on 21 December by a local policeman who was accompanied by another man. "The policeman introduced him as an officer of the SIS who had come from Chisinau," Porcescu said.

" - He didn't show any identity card," Porcescu added, and also said that the "most important question" for the officer was which Orthodox jurisdiction he belonged to. The visit lasted a full twenty minutes and was "not pleasant" because of what Ion Porcescu regarded as unwarranted and intrusive questions.

Also complaining of police check-ups is Bishop Filaret (Pancu), who leads the diocese in Moldova of the Kiev Patriarchate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. He said his Church has two monasteries and seven other churches in Moldova.

" - The police often call our priests in for no reason," he says "There are constant questions, insults and threats." Police have hesitated to interrupt services, but often arrive during a service and wait till the end to speak to the priest. No such intrusive visits have been reported in the 'de facto' independent state of Transdniestria, which for the past 17 years have been outside any the effective jurisdiction of Moldovan authorities. There, locals report that the level of religious freedom is higher than in Moldova. Despite the unrecognized country's smaller size, four times as many churches and other religious communities are registered there as compared to those registered in Moldova.

Trumped-up charges in bogus criminal case

Bishop Filaret said that in early January the Moldovan authorities threatened to open a criminal case against him, based on trumped-up corruption charges. "Of course this is not true. People have given money voluntarily and we spend it on Church work."

A Russian-speaking priest, Vadim Cheibas of the Moldovan Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, also reported check-ups recently. These are the first such check-ups he could recall.

The only non-Orthodox religious community known to have faced such a check-up since early December was one Jehovah's Witness congregation in a village in the northern Riscani District. Anatoly Cravciuc of the Jehovah's Witnesses congregation asked police to put their reasons in writing but their request was ignored. Cravciuc says that that no permission is required in Moldovan law for religious communities to meet. Nevertheless, Moldovan authorities continue to prevent churches from freely holding religious services.

Alla Melica, a spokesperson for Moldova's Interior Ministry, asserts that the check-ups on the Bessarabian priests were done to "protect citizens during the holiday period". Melica insisted that no information on the way parishes functioned was collected. "We don't have records as to who is or is not a Bessarabian priest," she claimed. She did not give any explanation of why the Jehovah's Witnesses were also targeted, or why parishes affiliated with Moscow and Kiev received threatening visits as well.

When informed that priests considered the methods intrusive and unwarranted, the Interior Ministry spokesperson simply responded: "No-one has complained to us." (With information from Forum 18)

See also:
» Moldova priests prosecuted in court for protesting against religious persecution
» Moldova expels four priests and a nun in religious persecution