Romania needs priests' unions

The founding of an Orthodox priests' union in Romania is lawful because for the most part the priests are paid by the state. This was the ruling handed down by the European Court of Human Rights on Thursday. Ciprian Domnişoru hopes in the blog portal Voxpublica that Romania's government will not appeal the sentence: "Romania's Orthodox Church continues to reject the idea of a priests' union, and has consequently complained to the government. The Church leadership finds such a union pointless, arguing that priests have a duty to ensure social peace. ... But in their communication to the government the Church leadership forgot to mention that there are already two priests' unions. ... All three unions will in the future expose abuse and corruption in Romania's Orthodox Churches. ... And it would certainly be problematic if in addition to paying for the priests' salaries and new churches, the government were also to pay for the expensive legal appeal."

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