Moscow Fears Moldova Will Follow Ukraine and Ban Russian Orthodox Church

Executive Summary:

• Moscow officials and churchmen fear Chisinau will follow Kyiv and ban the Russian Orthodox Church in Moldova. Both they and pro-Moscow groups there are using concerns about that in their campaign against the re-election of Moldova’s pro-Western leader.
• Russian fears are not only about losing yet another part of what Moscow views as its church’s canonical territory but also about the expansion of Romanian and Western influence in Moldova and Ukraine, where the Romanian church has a sizable presence.
• President Maia Sandu says she will not ban Moldova’s Orthodox church, but senior members of her party have indicated they want to do so. Sandu’s critics say she is being disingenuous, not declaring her intentions to ban the Moscow church lest the move cost her votes, but nevertheless planning to do so if re-elected.

The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROC MP), one of the Kremlin’s most important tools in maintaining its influence in the former Soviet space, is facing yet another crisis, this time in Moldova. Some of the allies of pro-Western President Maia Sandu say they want to follow the Ukrainian example and ban the Moscow church, as they consider it a foreign agent. Sandu has denied any such plans, but her critics say that she is being disingenuous out of fear that she will lose votes in the upcoming presidential elections in October (Politnavigator.net, September 6, 7, 10; Rubaltic.ru, September 7, 16; Eurasia.Expert, September 13; Izvestiya, September 14; Rusk.ru, September 24). The ongoing attacks on Sandu and her supporters for such an idea and the organization of mass protests against her and it, of course, are very much part of the electoral campaign. They should not be dismissed as merely that, however, because they reflect Moscow’s deeper and longstanding worries that it is about to lose influence relative to the West in yet another country it considers part of its traditional sphere of influence.

This defeat will cost Russia dearly, as more than 90 percent of the population of increasingly pro-Western Moldova identify as Orthodox. This further undercuts the Moscow patriarchate’s claim to speak for all the Orthodox peoples of the post-Soviet space (Window on Eurasia, October 22, 2018; see EDM, August 12, 2021, August 17, 2023). These worries have been intensified by the specific conditions of religious life in Moldova. A ban on the Moscow church would boost the standing of the Romanian Orthodox Church there, make it the dominant religious organization in Moldova, and could even open the way for a possible unification of Moldova and Romania. The potential that the growth of the Romanian church in Moldova could further undermine the ROC MP’s influence in Ukraine, which has been used by Moscow to undermine Ukrainian statehood, represents Moscow’s biggest nightmare in the region. 

In other post-Soviet countries, moves to restrict or even outright ban the Moscow church are part of understandable drives to create national Orthodox hierarchies independent of Russia. The situation in Moldova, however, is vastly more complicated because of its convoluted history. Border changes in Moldova over the past two centuries have played a larger role than almost anywhere else. In brief, the modern history of Russian Orthodoxy in what is now Moldova began in the first part of the 19th century when the Russian Empire seized the region from the Ottoman Empire and reorganized the existing Orthodox presence under the Patriarchate of Moscow. When Romania absorbed this region in 1918, Bucharest the local churches under the Patriarchate of Romania. That arrangement continued until World War II, at the end of which the Soviet Union annexed what is now Moldova and the ROC MP replaced the Romanian church. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, Moscow gave its church in Moldova self-governing status, but at the same time, the Romanian Bessarabian Orthodox Church returned and became more active, although it has remained significantly smaller.

According to surveys, 86 percent of the Moldovan population say they are affiliated with the Moldovan Orthodox Church (MOC), as the Moscow church in Moldova styles itself, while only 11 percent identify as being part of the Romanian Bessarabian Metropolitanate (Rubaltic.ru, September 16). There has been some recent erosion in the support for the former, with some 60 parishes of the MOC have resubordinated themselves to the Bessarabian Metropolitanate in the last several years (Rusk.ru, September 19). They constitute, however, only about five percent of the 1,200 parishes in the MOC. Were Chisinau to ban the MOC, as at least some in the ruling party favor, the share of parishes changing sides would likely swell, although at least some of the MOC parishes would likely go underground and seek support from Moscow and religious rights groups elsewhere. This would create a potentially explosive situation that may be one of the reasons Sandu has responded coolly to the idea of a ban.

Something else may be more significant, at least as far as the Kremlin is concerned. A ban on the MOC would not so much lead to the formation of a Moldovan national Orthodox church as to a radical expansion in Moldova of the Bessarabian Metropolitanate, which is subordinate to Bucharest. That would add to the support of those in Moldova who have sought to reunite with Romania, for cultural, linguistic, or historical reasons. This would also represent a means of entering the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) via the backdoor, given that Romania is a member of both. Much of the anger Russian outlets and pro-Moscow officials and churchmen are now expressing about the threat of a ban almost certainly reflects these concerns rather than a theological defense of the ROC MP’s position in Moldova (e.g., Politnavigator.net, September 12). Because of how religious life in Moldova would likely develop and the political consequences that would have, the Kremlin may be even more worried than the Moscow Patriarchate about these developments.

There is another, more immediate reason why the Russian government is worried about the possible ban of the Moscow church in Moldova and its replacement by the Romanian Bessarabian Metropolitanate. Such a move would strengthen the position of the Romanian church in Ukraine. At present, there are more than 150,000 ethnic Romanians and 250,000 ethnic Moldovans in Ukraine, most of whom speak Romanian and attend one of the roughly 120 Bessarabian parishes there (Novaya Gazeta, May 3). Some in Moscow are already seeking to play up tensions between the Romanian church in Ukraine and the Ukrainian government. The Kremlin and its agents have even tried to spark secessionist ideas among the Bessarabian metropolitanate and thus could be expected to welcome any developments in that direction (Politnavigator.net, September 17). Most in the Russian capital, however, are likely concerned that the rise of the Bessarabian church in Ukraine would give Kyiv yet another pro-Western ally on its territory (Window on Eurasia, March 10).

Given the negative reaction in the West to Kyiv’s plans to ban the Moscow church, it is possible that a re-elected President Sandu will not move to ban the Russian church. Pressure from her allies, however, means that the issue is not going to go away even if Sandu does not take action later. That pressure is likely to keep Moldova on the road to an eventual ban. This could become the basis for an even more dramatic Moldovan break with Moscow—all the more so because of Moscow’s concerns about what a ban would mean for its status in the Orthodox world and the knock-on effects for the Kremlin’s policies in Ukraine and other parts of the post-Soviet space.