Government to fund five per cent of national Cathedral

3/3/2011

CALEA 13 SEPTEMBRIE Romania’s state will help fund work on the construction of five per cent of the Cathedral Of The Nation’s Salvation, including 2.4 million Euro in 2011

The remaining cash for the 400 million Euro project will come from the Patriarchy of The Romanian Orthodox Church’s own funds and contributions from citizens.
Building work on the Cathedral has started on a strip of walled wasteland opposite the Parliament Palace and the National Museum of Contemporary Arts (MNAC) on Calea 13 Septembrie.

However the Government’s decision to allocate public money for the construction received criticism from some activists.

“The Cathedral not only eats up huge public funds, but it also kills common decency, political responsibility and the democratic principle of separation between church and state,” said Remus Cernea, leader of the party Miscarea Verzilor (Green Movement), which argues the Church should only build the cathedral from its own funds.

The Church will start a large scale donation collection campaign after Easter. Citizens can make donations for the Cathedral at local parishes, monasteries and hermitages, only to the clerics hired by those places of worship.

The deadline for the completion of the work is the beginning of 2016. By the end of this year, the church plans to finish its 25-metre foundation. The Cathedral is built on an 11-hectare plot donated by the Romanian government and will use five hectares for the development of the 120-metre tall cathedral, which can host up to 5,000 visitors in one sitting.

The development will not require the expropriation of any land, except the tennis courts belonging to the members of Parliament.

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