Romania – Authentic church calendars are not convertible into election material
Basilica News Agency – Aurelian Iftimiu – 26/11/2020
The Romanian Patriarchate was surprised to learn that during the election campaign a political entity printed, in order to offer citizens as electoral material, Christian-Orthodox calendars that contain not only a political logo, but also liturgical and typicon mistakes, omissions or erroneous inscriptions of some recently canonized Romanian saints and of some religious holidays.
Beyond the fact that such an initiative materialized in the printing of a masked electoral material in the Christian-Orthodox calendar constitutes misappropriation of Christian-Orthodox content, image and symbol, it violates Law no. 103/1992, regarding the exclusive right of religious denominations for the production of religious objects (updated on January 29, 2001) according to which the Romanian Orthodox Church has the exclusive right to print Orthodox calendars and to sell/distribute them only in churches, monasteries and church-owned shops.
We remind you that, in the perspective of this year’s local and legislative elections, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, during its meeting of July 21, 2020, starting from the positions expressed successively by the synodal decisions of February 13-14, 1996, February 23-25, 2000, February 12-13, 2004, March 5-7, 2008 and February 25, 2016, out of the desire to make as clear as possible the attitude of the Romanian Orthodox Church towards political life and election campaigns, reiterated its call to the leaders of Romanian political parties not to allow the recruitment of members of the clergy nor to use Church persons, spaces, services and insignia for political purposes.
As a result, the Romanian Patriarchate recommends that Orthodox believers look for authentic Orthodox calendars only in churches, monasteries and church shops, in order to be sure that their text is the one approved annually by the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
The press office of the Romanian Patriarchate
Photography courtesy of Basilica.ro / Iulian Dumitraşcu
