Antonios of Bessarabia: "During the Soviet period we were persecuted" - Open to dialogue with the ecclesiastical structure of the Moscow Patriarchatetranslated

The persecution suffered by the Diocese of Bessarabia and the Romanian Orthodox Church during the Soviet period in Moldova was mentioned, among other things, in an interview with TVR Moldova by the new Archbishop of Chisinau and Metropolitan of Bessarabia Mr. Antonios. “We, those of us in the Diocese of Bessarabia, know what injustice has been done in our jurisdiction. He was deported just like so many of our blood relatives were deported," he said.

Metropolitan Antonios described as a moment of joy the official recognition of the re-establishment of the Metropolis of Bessarabia by the European Court of Human Rights immediately after the dissolution of the USSR in the early 1990s, recalling that he personally participated in the process, together with Vlad Kubreakov and the lawyer Elisei Sekriero.

In the interview he gave to journalist Lilia Țurcanu, His Holiness also referred to the concept of normality, which is discussed quite a bit on the internet and in the press beyond Prutus.

Open to dialogue with the ecclesiastical structure of the Moscow Patriarchate Metropolitan Antonios also expressed his readiness for dialogue with the ecclesiastical structure of...