Rogue nuns face prison and bloodshed in anti-Communist protest
Breakaway Orthodox nuns running a campaign against the Church’s collaboration with the Communists are going to the European Court to defend their right to free expression, following violence on the steps to the House of God
“Let’s go to the Sfantul Gheorghe
Church on Blvd Bratianu, at least we
don’t get beaten up there.”
For Paula Bulgaru, aged 26, the choice
of a church to attend Sunday mass
always comes with the question “Will I
get beaten up?”
This morning she and her friends
did not get whacked the moment they
entered the church and started to shout,
in the middle of the mass, their allegations: “The Patriarch Teoctist is not
worthy to have his name mentioned in
the house of God! He collaborated with
the Securitate and had churches demolished
during the Communist regime!”
A few seconds later churchgoers push
them onto the street.
“We are protesting against the hierarchs
of the Church, not against the
Church,” Bulgaru says. “We protest
against the hierarchs
with a dark
past, who cooperated
with the
Securitate and
do not represent
the Christian
morale.”
Bulgaru alleges that leader of the
Romanian Orthodox Church, Teoctist,
is a former collaborator and that almost
none of the hierarchs is worthy to lead
the Church, because they are tainted.
She is part of the Orthodox Nunnery
of Vladimiresti, around 30 women in
Bucharest and various locations near
Galati and Braila
who travel as missionaries
around
Romania protesting
religious gatherings.
But their ecclesiastic
status is shaky.
Members of the clergy have labeled
them as heretic and “fake” nuns.
“They are not nuns, they are just women dressed in black,”
says Father Constantin Stoica,
spokesman of the Romanian
Patriarchy.
“Of course we are nuns,”
says Bulgaru. “I made my
vows in front of a priest
and indeed, not in front of a
bishop, because the bishop
of the Lower Danube,” she
alleges, “is tainted.”
On Patriarch Teoctist’s
birthday, 7 February 2006,
three nuns and two other
supporters shouted outside
the Metropolitan
Cathedral: ‘Down
with the Communist
Synod led by
Teoctist!’
“The bodyguards
of the Patriarch
intervened, manhandling
us,” Bulgaru
says. “They pushed
a very old nun, aged
86, pulling her scarf
as if to strangle her.”
The police then
fined the nuns the
equivalent of 140
Euro for disturbing public
order.
Bulgaru still has a scar on
her forehead she received last
autumn at the Sfantul Mihail
si Gavril Church, in Muncii,
Bucharest.
The moment she shouted
her protest against the
Orthodox leaders, a man
employed by the church to
chase the beggars away, took
up a club and hit her in the
head, she claims.
Bulgaru says the entrance
to the church was splashed in
her blood.
“By the time the Police
came the man had disappeared,”
she says. “The priest
said that nobody had beaten
me and that I had smashed
my own head against the
church door.”
The man is now under
investigation for the alleged
attack.
The nuns also face prison.
“Since I have started my
active protest against the
hierarchs of
the church five
years ago I
have received
many fines and
because I don’t
have a salary
to pay them, I
have been in
prison twice,”
says Bulgaru.
Romanian
weekly satire
Academia
Catavencu has
supported the
nuns’ protest and paid some
of their fines, to prevent further
prison terms.
“It is a clear case of trespassing
of human rights, as,
when wanting to express their
opinions and beliefs, they are
arrested and beaten,” says
Mircea Toma of Academia
Catavencu. “They get beaten
by priests and by the Police
alike… they go through three
to five violent episodes per
year.”
Nevertheless Toma does
concede that in the rebel
group there are individuals
with psychiatric issues.
The group has image problems
and is often labeled as “mad”.
Another supporter has
been the local branch of the
Association for the Defence
of Human Rights – Helsinki
Committee (APADOR-CH).
Bulgaru has handed the
European Court of Human
Rights a complaint against the
Romanian state for repeated
trespassing of her rights to
the freedom of conscience
and expression.
“The disturbance of public
order is not a reason to get
beaten up,” says Bulgaru’s
defending lawyer Adriana
Dagalita of APADOR-CH.
However, for the church, it
is not a question of one person’s
freedom.
“We all have the freedom
of expression, but the exercise
of our own rights stops
where the rights of our peers
begin,” says Father Stoica. “They trespass on the right
of the believers to attend the
holy service in peace.”
Her says the nuns have a
rich imagination.
Few in the Church support
their protest. Mitropolite
Nicolae Corneanu of Banat is
the only Orthodox hierarch to
publicly admit collaboration
with the Communist regime.
“I have made compromises
for the Salvation of the
Church,” he says. “It is normal
to admit one’s mistakes
and hierarchs should not
make an exception from this
Christian rule.”
He believes the nuns should
find another way of making
their voices heard.
“I understand their discontentment,”
he says. “They can
protest, but, because they are
nuns, they should respect certain
limits.”
Anca Pol