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Moldova - Religion

The U.S. government estimates the population at 3.5 million (July 2015 estimate). According to a 2011 global Gallup survey on religion, the most recent available containing information on specific religious affiliation, the predominant religion is Orthodox Christianity, with 96 percent of the population belonging to one of the two Orthodox groups: approximately 86 percent to the MOC, which is subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church, and 13 percent to the Bessarabian Orthodox Church (BOC), under the Romanian Orthodox Church. According to a 2012 Gallup poll, 5 percent of the population declares itself atheist. A 2012 poll by the NGO Human Rights Information Center estimates active membership in non-Orthodox religious groups at 150,000. The largest non-Orthodox religious groups, accounting for 15,000 to 30,000 adherents each, are Roman Catholics, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, Jews, evangelical Christians, and Muslims.

Religious leaders play a limited part in Moldovan politics. Most believers are affiliated with the Moldovan Orthodox Church (MOC), which has operational autonomy within the Moscow Patriarchate. Its relations with the much smaller Metropolis of Basarabia, under the Romanian Orthodox Church, are perennially strained. The MOC favors international cooperation with Russia and other CIS states; the Metropolis of Basarabia is strongly oriented, culturally, toward Romania. During the PCRM’s time in power the party, despite its Marxist-Leninist roots, cultivated friendly relations with the Orthodox hierarchy. The AEI alliance “does not have a clear strategy of interaction with the church,” partly out of jealousies within the coalition. The MOC metropolitan of Chisinau has strongly opposed legal protection of religious and sexual minorities. In debates over the 2010 Law on Ensuring Equality, he and a number of other clergy made common cause not only with the PCRM but with the PL fraction within the AEI caucus, and were aligned against international organizations and domestic rights activists.

The constitution protects the right of individuals to practice their religion and states religious groups are autonomous and independent from the state. The law, however, recognizes the “exceptional importance” of Orthodox Christianity, and the government continued to provide preferential treatment to the Moldovan Orthodox Church (MOC). The Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional the provision in the law on fighting extremist activity, which qualified as extremist the display of Nazi symbols, due to a lack of a clear legal definition.

Leaders of two Falun Gong groups believed the ruling, once published, would allow them to reregister and resume full activity after the Supreme Court of Justice had upheld, earlier in 2015, the decision of lower courts to dissolve two Falun Gong public associations because of their use of the swastika symbol. The associations stated their use of the symbol was based on ancient Buddhist and Chinese tradition and had nothing to do with Nazism. A change in government policy led to a significant increase in the number of new registrations of religious groups, but instances of reported government discrimination against minority religious groups remained common. Jehovah’s Witnesses reported a poor police response to incidents of physical aggression against their members. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals stated they encountered difficulty obtaining buildings in which to worship, despite court orders.

In the separatist Transnistria region, de facto authorities continued restricting the activities of minority religious groups. Minority religious groups there expressed concern about an inability to fulfill a legislative requirement to reregister. Jehovah’s Witnesses said they also could not register new branch offices in the region. Other minority groups, including Muslims, stated they continued to refrain from overt religious activities due to incidents with the security forces such as seizure of religious materials and questioning of community members.

The Human Rights Information Center, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), stated that the MOC exercised a strong influence on the state’s public policies and “abusively interfered with the minority religious groups’ right to the freedom of religion.” Minority religious groups, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, and Pentecostals, reported cases of verbal abuse, property destruction, and media discrimination as well as discrimination by MOC priests. The Muslim community reported biased attitudes, resulting in harassment in schools and negative media coverage.

In October 2015 the government arrested two men on human trafficking charges, alleging they recruited, transported, and harbored persons for labor exploitation and that the Unification Church was founded in 2008 as an organized criminal group. Human rights groups said that the two were not guilty, the charges stemmed from a dispute among Church members, and that the prosecution was politically motivated. Prosecutors stated they were correctly applying the law. The two individuals remained imprisoned at year’s end.

According to Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders, in many cases of verbal abuse or physical assault against their members, the police either found no basis to charge the perpetrator or downgraded the offenses and only issued administrative fines. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses reported that in June 2015 in Balanesti village, Nisporeni Raion, the local Orthodox priest gathered a group of approximately 25 men to surround Jehovah’s Witnesses and physically prevent them from holding religious activities. The Jehovah’s Witnesses community sent a complaint to the Nisporeni police office, which found that the priest’s actions did not contain the elements of an offense. Jehovah’s Witnesses also reported that in July the local Orthodox priest in Cahul obstructed a public religious event of the group, used derogatory language, threatened them, and knocked down and kicked a stand holding religious literature. Jehovah’s Witnesses filed a complaint against the priest. In a written response, the police qualified the actions as minor hooliganism and said they had not identified the perpetrator.

Jehovah’s Witnesses stated that in many instances local mayors or councilors were pressured by Orthodox priests to discriminate against Jehovah’s Witnesses, and local public officials and priests serving as local councilors refused to execute court orders allowing use of facilities by Jehovah’s Witnesses for worship. They further reported that in some cases local priests paid the court fines levied on the towns, and in many cases Orthodox priests served as local councilors and took decisions against religious minority groups. For example, in Mereni village, according to Jehovah’s Witnesses, the mayor refused to issue a permit allowing the Jehovah’s Witness community to use its completed kingdom hall following a final court ruling allowing the group to do so. In June the mayor informed the Jehovah’s Witnesses he would not issue the required documents because he feared upsetting the local residents as well as the priest. Jehovah’s Witnesses stated the local Orthodox priest paid the mayor’s legal bills and continued hateful speech and calls for violence against them. In another case in Singera town, despite a final court ruling in their favor in 2010, Jehovah’s Witnesses said the local administration continued to refuse to allow a building to be used as a kingdom hall.

On 11 February 2015, the Supreme Court of Justice upheld a court of appeals ruling ordering the dissolution of the country’s two Falun Gong organizations, Falun Gong Moldova and Falun Dafa, on the grounds they promoted extremist activities. Both organizations, which had registered as public associations after unsuccessful attempts to register as religious groups, were removed from the state register of public associations at that time. Falun leader Tatiana Chiriac stated both earlier court decisions were unfounded and beyond any legal norms. A former judge who ruled on the case stated he had been pressured by his superior to rule for the dissolution of the two Falun Gong organizations.

On 28 January 2015, the Supreme Court of Justice had upheld a lower court decision declaring the Falun symbol, which incorporates five swastikas based on Buddhist and Chinese tradition, extremist. On February 24, the Ministry of Justice issued a decree to include all the materials bearing the Falun symbol into the government’s Register of Materials with Extremist Character. The introduction of the Falun symbol into the register banned the publication and distribution of various materials of Falun Dafa, which the Falun leaders stated was an infringement upon their freedom of thought, speech, and belief. The Falun associations filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.

On 23 November 2015, the Constitutional Court ruled unconstitutional the provision in the law on fighting extremist activity which qualified as extremist the display of Nazi-like symbols due to a lack of a clear legal definition. Falun Dafa leaders indicated they expected that this decision, once published in the Official Gazette, should result in the removal of the Falun Dafa symbol from the Register of Symbols with Extremist Character and allow the two Falun Gong associations to resume their activities and reapply to register as public associations or religious groups. The Falun Dafa officials also stated that in the meantime the two associations, while not dissolved, lacked legal standing.