Bucharest: world's largest Orthodox church consecrated
After 15 years of construction, the People's Salvation Cathedral, the world's biggest Orthodox church, was consecrated in Bucharest on Sunday. An estimated 200 to 315 million euros went into its construction, but the exact figure is not known even though most of the money came from public funds. A good investment?
Cost-cutting and transparency don't apply here
Golazo.ro criticises the special status of the church:
“Bucharest now has the largest Orthodox cathedral in the world. We also have a football stadium which has even hosted a European final. Both buildings were built using public funds: in Romania, religion and football are mass phenomena. But what is the difference between the two buildings? The transparency in the use of public funds. It was the decision of the Romanian Orthodox Church to keep a low profile here. But even in our collective perception, money is apparently less of a problem when it comes to building a cathedral than a stadium, a hospital or ten kilometres of bypass road.”
A sign of strong faith
The national liberal MEP Gheorghe Falcă makes the case for the construction of the cathedral in Adevărul:
“The National Cathedral is both a place of prayer and an architectural, artistic and creative legacy of a faith that survived communism, experienced uprooting and transitions, but nevertheless did not give up. ... In an increasingly secularised Europe, which (I wonder why?) is increasingly plagued by moral and spiritual crises, we Romanians maintain a rare balance: we are modern Europeans, but also believers with deep, authentic, living roots! The People's Salvation Cathedral reminds us of this dual vocation - to shape the future without forgetting our souls.”