PRESIDENT DODON PROPOSES TO HOLD ALL-ORTHODOX COUNCIL IN CHISINAU

Moldovan President Igor Dodon has proposed to hold an all-Orthodox assembly in Chisinau to discuss the new situation in the Orthodox Church. He wrote on his Facebook page on Tuesday that the conflict that broke out between the Constantinople Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church "is perhaps one of the acutest questions in the entire history of Orthodoxy".

"The church schism may become a long-bleeding wound on the body of the whole Orthodox Church. The governments of Orthodox countries must take measures together with Local Churches to overcome this dissention", wrote the President.

Igor Dodon further held that Moldova is an Orthodox country, where 98% population are Orthodox Christians, "so Moldova has been and shall further be in the Orthodox world".

"Moldova has been and shall remain a canonic territory of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Moldovan Metropolitanate was founded in 1813 by the efforts of our great hierarch and consecrator Gavriil Banulescu-Bodoni within the Russian Orthodox Church. And we shall preserve our fidelity to our unite Church", promised Igor Dodon. The President has fully supported the initiative to convoke an All-Orthodox Council spoken out by Antiochian Patriarch Ioann X and supported by broad circles of the clergy and worshippers of the Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Polish, Alexandrian and Jerusalem Orthodox Churches as well as of the Orthodox Church in America - all for resolving one of the acutest disputes in the Orthodox history.

"With an account of all the above-mentioned, I am standing up with an initiative to convene an All-Orthodox Council in Moldova. We are a unique Orthodox country situated in the heart of the Orthodox world, and exactly Moldova can become a platform for a meeting between all the Heads of the Local Orthodox Churches in this extremely important period", wrote the President of Moldova.