Stop the diversion !

Romanian Orthodox Church (BOR), in its entirety, is the target of a concerted attack, whose precedent can only be find in the dark Stalinist epoch. The aim is that the political power confiscates the patriarchal chair, the top of the Church. The best way to do it is by manipulating the elections that are to follow. Visible and invisible forces take part in this dangerous diversion, meant to reduce even more the independence and the credibility of the Church. The National Council for Research on the Communist Secret Police Archive (CNSAS) stands forefront, probably also with a view to an ultimate self-compromising. This institution is pushed forward as a battering ram to break the heads of those persisting in the idea that the Synod itself should elect the new patriarch. And I mean a free Synod, whose votes are guided by factors outside the Church as little as possible. However, the dirty trick CNSAS is organizing today is only a smoke curtain as the true manipulators stand behind. It's about, first and foremost, the President of Romania, Traian Basescu. The secret services, which are working hard to provide real information of a compromising nature on the high clergy, and also rumours and forgeries closely follow him. And rumours circulate with a hallucinating speed among the Orthodox Christians. Secondly, parties couldn't have missed this war of dubbing the new patriarch. And parties are known to manipulate. And they have their elected members at both central and local level. Multiple pressures are put on the high clergy and on the other members of the Synod who are to vote. These pressures range from blackmail to broad or explicit threats, from direct "unmasking" actions, up to also direct actions of buying good will. And, eventually, the so-called high level talks of a persuasive type are there too. We witness one of the dirtiest tricks from after December 1989.
I am among the most consistent supporters of the man Ticu Dumitrescu. I have pleaded for a law on the unmasking the former communist secret police (Securitatea) starting January 1990. I have backed up Ticu when he has struggled for the issuing of such a piece of legislation. Finally, the initial document has been distorted in such a way in the Parliament that even Ticu Dumitrescu hasn't vindicated its paternity. I thought that if Ticu Dumitrescu comes to CNSAS, the whole hubbub that has marked the beginning of this institution was going to end, especially after the "elected ones" finally had access to the files. Actually, each of them and starting with Ticu, they have turned into commissaries. And they look just like those in Stalin's time. Together, they make up an instrument of political manipulation, i.e. of political police. To this is, for the time being, limited the so-called work of "unmasking the communist secret service as political police". It's high time I asked Mr. Ticu Dumitrescu to stop and to admit that he has fallen into a dangerous trap. He should start repairing what he has damaged and unmask the CNSAS.
It's high time now to catch the attention of the public opinion on the fact that the "unmasking" of the high clergy right about the time when the patriarch must be elected is a diversion. And that they're being called at the CNSAS seat is an abuse. And the fact that CNSAS affords to officially state that it gives sentences on some people's past is a dirt, a distortion of the aim it has been set up for. And the diversion is being built up exactly by those who have the interest of turning the Church into a tool of the political struggle. And those are the politicians themselves. Not all of them, of course, but some do, headed by the tenant in Cotroceni Palace, who gives electoral speeches in churches.
Stop the diversion against the Romanian Orthodox Church ! Catch Traian Basescu's attention on the reality that it is not the sacrificing of the independence of the Church that will guarantee him a second mandate. And tell him openly that there won't be a second mandate.

Sorin Rosca Stanescu
Ziua Miercuri 5 Septembrie 2007 http://www.ziua.net/english