CHISINAU, September 5. /TASS/. Moldovan President Maia Sandu and her ruling Party of Action and Solidarity are following in Ukraine’s footsteps as they plan to ban the canonical Orthodox Church in the country, former President Igor Dodon said.

Earlier, Soimaru Vasile, a member of Moldova’s ruling party, announced government plans to denounce the Orthodox Church of Moldova, a self-governing church body subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church, as early as this fall in a move reminiscent of Kiev’s ban on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) in the former Soviet republic. The ruling party later rushed to disavow the lawmaker’s remark by saying that he was speaking only for himself.

"The ruling party put out a statement saying this is not true. But this is true. And if the ruling party stays in power, Sandu’s first mandate will be the least of our problems. They are clearly replaying the Ukraine script, and soon both the church and the state will be gone," the ex-Moldovan president said in a video message on his Telegram channel. He also recounted what he said were the Moldovan government’s persistent efforts to promote LGBT propaganda at schools.

Earlier, he criticized his country for cracking down on church clerics in an effort to force them to leave the Orthodox Church of Moldova for the Metropolis of Bessarabia under the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Created in 1813, the Orthodox Church of Moldova has more than 1,200 parishes, comprising six dioceses, today. In 1992, the Metropolis of Bessarabia, subordinate to the Romanian Patriarchate, appeared in Moldova. The republic’s government and the Metropolis of Chisinau and All Moldova refused to register it, fearing that the move would lead to a church schism. However, in 2001, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the demand of supporters of the Metropolis of Bessarabia, ordering the state to proceed with the registration. The conflict between the two metropolises has recently escalated amid developments in Ukraine.