Having talked about the religious situation in the two other countries that I visited, I thought that I’d talk about the third country that I went to and that is Moldova. Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. It was part of the Soviet Union until the disintegration in 1991. Unfortunately we only spent two days here so my analysis is somewhat limited. Unlike Poland we never had a relative as a guide to give us little tidbits about the culture. I should point out that the above video is not mine. I will be uploading some videos of this vacation to my YouTube channel soon.
Moldova, like Poland is very religiously and culturally homogeneous. Almost everyone is a member of the Orthodox Church. Unlike neighboring countries such as Romania and the Ukraine, there was never a Greek Catholic presence. There are no signs of any other religions as well. The country does have three different Orthodox churches in it, but unlike Ukraine, they’re canonically valid in the eyes of most of the Orthodox world.
The country did seem a lot more religious than the Ukraine. In the countryside there seems to be a lot of statues of Christ and his blessed mother. It reminded me of Italy. It seemed a bit odd since the Orthodox are more into icons than statues but I suppose that they’re permitted. The Moldovan people certainly make good use of them. Moldovan’s usually make the sign of the cross when they walk by them.
The country is very poor. As I mentioned earlier, it’s the poorest country in Europe. This becomes very apparent when one goes to the countryside. In Chisinau we stayed in the main area close to the cathedral. The area around the Church is very nice and well kept. It wouldn’t seem like a poor country looking at that part alone, but the rest of the country testifies to this. The outskirts of Chisinau are very run down with Soviet style buildings. It seems that most people outside of the large cities get their water from wells instead of taps. Wells are everywhere.
There is an old cliche that the more prosperous a country is, the less religious it is. I don’t buy into this at all since there are so many holes in the theory. Moldova is poorer and less prosperous than Ukraine, though more religious. This fits the cliche, but Poland is more prosperous than either of them yet more religious. It’s obvious that other factors are involved.
I only went into one Church and that was the Cathedral. I didn’t have any Moldovan currency so I didn’t buy any icons. Everyone who was walking by the Cathedral was making the sign of the cross. A gesture that shows that they respect the Church, even if they may not attend it regularly. As I mentioned in previous posts, this attitude is there in Ukraine.
One thing that I noticed that the Moldovan people did that the Ukrainians didn’t, was that whenever I spoke Russian, they slowed down for me. It’s not my first language and any native speaker would pick this up in about two seconds. I know that this has nothing to do with religiosity but it was a kind gesture. Thank you Moldova! I don’t think that I used the words yeshche raz once when I was there.
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