25.01.2008, [17:47] // Orthodox // RISU.ORG.UA
Bucharest —Last week the Romanian government officially approved a new statute of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The document confirmed the establishment of the Bessarabian Metropolitanate which includes Kyshyniv Archeparchy and Beltsk, Eastern-Bessarabian, Dubossary eparchies and the eparchy of All Zadnistrovia. The previous statute of the Romanian Orthodox Church was approved in 1948. The story was reported by Interfax on 24 January 2008 with reference to the Romanian newspaper, Cotidianul.
As RISU reported, in his comments on the establishment of three eparchies in Moldova, the Head of the Bessarabian Metropolitanate of the Romanian Orthodox Church Metropolitain Petru (Peduraru) stated that “temporarily attached to these eparchies will also be the Eparchies of Khotyn, Chetatia-Albe (Bilhorod-Dnistrovsk) and Izmaiil until it becomes possible to establish these eparchies in the territory of Ukraine, where they existed before 1940.”
The Romanian Orthodox Church believes that the activity of the Bessarabian Metropolitanate, not recognized by the Moscow Patriarchate, is justified by a number of historic and legal arguments. The issue is dealt with in a document entitled “Renewal of the Bessarabian Metropolitanate: Legal Act and Moral Compensation.”
The authors state that the three eparchies within the jurisdiction of the Bessarabian Metropolitanate were restored “without a denial of the right to existence of the Russian Metropolitanate of Kyshyniv and All Moldova as an eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, as the Romanian Patriarchate respects the wish of the Orthodox believers to belong to the Romanian or Moscow Patriarchate.”