Russian Patriarch Awards Honour to Moldovan President

Russian Patriarch Kirill presented President Igor Dodon with a Russian religious order on Wednesday on the first day of the Moldovan leader's official visit to Moscow.

"His Holiness gave me the Order of St. Sergius de Radonezh, in the second degree, for the active support shown for the public initiatives of the Orthodox Church in Moldova," Dodon wrote on Facebook.

The Moldovan Metropolitan Church is canonically subordinate to the Russian Patriarchy and also supports and campaigns for pro-Russian political forces in Moldova.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also signed a decree on Monday awarding the head of the Moldovan Church, Metropolitan Vladimir, with Russia's Order of Friendship.

During their talks on Wednesday, Dodon and Patriarch Kirill discussed "common spiritual values and a common Orthodox Church", Dodon said.

"The Moldovan Church is an integral part of the Russian Orthodox Church. It was, it is, and I'm sure it will be so. The overwhelming majority of Orthodox Christian believers in Moldova have the same opinion," he added.

However, the Orthodox Church of Bessarabia (the historic Romanian name for Moldova), which is subordinate to the Romanian Orthodox Church, also exists in Moldova, although it is less influential.

The honours for the Moldovan president and cleric came as Russia seeks to strengthen ties with canonically subordinate allies after the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople agreed to recognise the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's independence from Moscow.

"Granting high state orders by the Russian Patriarchate is an effective political weapon for the Kremlin to strengthen its own influence in the [former Soviet] region and beyond," Mihai Isac, a religious affairs expert, told BIRN.

He...