The Annual Meeting of the Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania

On 26 April 2012, the annual meeting of the Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania took place in Conventus room of the Patriarchate Palace, under the chairmanship of His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel, with the participation with the right to vote of the representatives of the following recognized cults:

– The Romanian Orthodox Church
– The Serb Orthodox Diocese of Timisoara
– The Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic
– Archdiocese of the Armenian Church
– The Russian Orthodox Church of Old Style of Romania
– A.C. Evangelical Church of Romania
– Lutheran Evangelical Church of Romania
– Christian Church according to the Gospel – Union of the Christian Churches according to the Gospel of Romania
– Jewish Communities Federation of Romania – Judaic Cult
– Muslim Cult of Romania

During the meeting, the Statutes of the Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania was approved through consensus and signed by all the members present.

1.The central theme of this meeting of the Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania was “Good Health – gift of God and human responsibility”. In this sense, the participants underlined the fact that good health, as gift of God, is man’s responsibility too, who has the duty to keep and cultivate this gift. This responsibility belongs to every separate human being, both for his or her own good health, and for that of the community, who has the duty to help the persons with precarious health through a sustained activity designed to prevent and treat diseases. Also mentioned was the State’s responsibility for its own citizens who pay their own contributions to the heath insurances. In this sense, the setting up and organisation of medical units by the recognized cults is an obvious must for every cult. Because not every cult can set up such units, the religious cults of Romania are interested in promoting a more efficient public sanitary system, taking into account especially the fact that a large part of Romania’s population is poor. From this point of view, the health system must be permanently guided, besides efficiency, by the principles of social ethics.

As for the new bill on the reform of the Romanian sanitary system, the representatives of the recognised religious cults emphasised the fact that this one must provide elements of control lest the most disadvantaged persons be neglected or treated only in accordance with their financial power. In this regard, the religious cults – each of them and all of them together – can promote a trend of community and social solidarity, a culture for good health, which fact implies medical education for preventing diseases (prophylactic medicine) and for sustaining the patients with low income or no income at all. Partnerships between the religious cults and public and private medical units are recommended.

2. The Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania supports the legislative initiatives which protect the life of the person as gift of God and the right to life from the moment of conception, promotes the traditional values of the family institution, and encourages the protection and growing the children in the bosom of the family, through adoptions too.

3. The Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania manifests its concern for responsible protection and usage of the entire creation of God in order to convey it to the next generations in all its purity and beauty. In this context, the participants expressed their concern for the many chemical additives and organisms genetically modified used in the alimentary production and urged to return to the natural food.

4. The Consultative Council of Romania has also manifested its support for the attitude of the Romanian Patriarchate and for the appeal of the State in the case of the Good Shepherd versus Romania trade union expressing their concern for the way in which the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR) ignores the autonomy of the religious cults and the specificity of the pastoral vocation of the clergy, accepting such a trade union.

5. As for the bill concerning the compensations in the case of the real estate nationalised by the communist regime, the Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania asks for the observation of the constitutional provisions according to which private property is guaranteed. Therefore, the Romanian State is asked that the legislative initiatives in the field of the properties retrocession stipulate, in the cases where the retrocession is no longer possible, compensation granted equal to the real value of the building, irrespective of the gradual granting of the respective amounts in the course of time.

6. The Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania manifests its concern for the continual construction of huge buildings close to the places of worship which fact affects their physical stability and integrity, as well as the lives of the faithful inside them.

7. The Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania asks the State authorities to adopt legislative measures so that the VAT paid by the recognised religious cults should be distinctively emphasised in the state budget for the next year and returned to the religious cults recognised for social-philanthropic, cultural-educational and municipal-administrative activities.

8. The Consultative Council of the Religious Cults of Romania decided the setting up of four working sessions, namely: 1. Medical and social Commission, 2. Educational Commission, 3. Commission for the religious cults and national patrimony, and 4. Economical Juridical Commission. The role of these commissions made up of experts of the religious cults in every field is to formulate common points of view to topical problems, as well as to propose amendments to the projects of normative interest for the religious cults.

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