The relationships of the Moscow and Bucharestian Patriarchates in the second half of the 1940s and the Resumption of the Russian Orthodox Church metochion activities in Bucharest

The paper explores some aspects of the resumption of canonical communication between the Russian and Romanian Orthodox Churches interrupted in 1918 after the annexation of Bessarabia by the Romanian kingdom and extension of the Bucharest Patriarchate jurisdiction to the ROC parishes in the province. The aggressive policy of Bucharest, which annexed Bessarabia and captured the ROC parishes in 1918 led to the lack of contacts between the Russian and the Romanian Churches in the 1920s -mid 1940s. In the summer of 1941 Romania annexed Transnistria and founded its own Church mission. When Transnistria and Moldavia were liberated from Romanian ocuupation, the Russian Orthodox Church regained its temples, with the mission to resume the relationships between the Russian and Romanian Orthodox churches. The Russian Orthodox Church delegation headed by Bishop leronim (Zakharov) was sent to Bucharest in the spring of 1945. In 1946, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church Nicodim (Muntyanu) suggested opening the Church as a metochion of the Russian Orthodox Church in Bucharest. In 1947, Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Alexey (Simansky) allocated 100 million lei for the renovation of the building of St. Nicholas Church in Bucharest. The most important problem was rector election, which was attended by the representatives of the Chisinau diocese, Moscow Patriarchate and USSR state authorities. As a result, Archpriest Pavel Statov was elected Rector of the Russian Church in Bucharest. He rebuilt and restored the St. Nicholas Church in the short term and contributed to the transformation of the metochion in the Slavic-Orthodox centre. In the second half of the 1940s the contacts between the Russian and Romanian Patriarchates resumed.

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