Russian Patriarch Cuts Short Planned Visit to Moldova

Moldova's pro-Russian President Igor Dodon said on Tuesday that Russian Patriarch Kirill will visit Moldova from October 27 to 28 - a shorter visit than the four-day trip that was initially announced.

The Russian Patriarch has cancelled his planned sermon in Tiraspol in the breakaway region of Transnistria.

"Following his programme, on Saturday evening His Holiness will officiate a divine liturgy in the Nativity of the Lord Metropolitan Cathedral in Chisinau. Also, for the first time, Patriarch Kirill will visit the towns of Comrat and Balti," Dodon wrote on Facebook.

Last week it was announced that the Russian spiritual leader will visit Moldova from October 26-29 and would visit four cities, Chisinau, Balti, Comrat and Tiraspol.

Dodon and his Socialists are hoping to get an electoral boost from the visit in the ongoing campaign for the parliamentary elections in February 2019, as the party's main themes are the 'traditional family' and opposition to minority religious confessions and the LGBT community. 

Theological expert Vitor Gotisan told BIRN that Kirill's shortened visit might be related to the bigger problems that Russian Patriarchy has with Ukraine and the autocephaly the Ukrainian Church recently received from Constantinople.

"The situation of the Church in Ukraine is more important now. As expected, the visit would be more for 'internal' purposes, a sort of pro-Socialist and pro-Igor Dodon electoral tour, to boost their political image before the parliamentary elections," said Gotisan.

He argued that the Patriarch Kirill shortened his visit as he realised that the Moldovan Church is showing no separatist tendencies from Moscow.

Another expert on religion, Vlad Cubreacov, told BIRN that the Russian...