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12 years ago, in Soroca, in the north of the Republic of Moldova, a step away from Ukraine, Sorin Huluta, a Romanian priest from eastern Bacau, took his family and went abroad to build a church.
Ordained in the citadel of Soroca by Petru, the metropolitan of Bessarabia, he served in the chapel of the citadel for several months, every two Sundays, as he had been advised to do, and then he set up a chapel in the basement of a hotel in the city. There, the idea of erecting a small wooden church materialized, although there was a project for a stone church.
Ever since he was a student in northwestern Oradea, Sorin Huluta wanted to serve in a wooden church, in the Maramures style. With financing obtained from Romania, he also contributed to the construction of the church, which is the only place of worship in the Maramures style on the territory of the Republic of Moldova. The more than six months it took to build the church were not without trials, tribulations, difficulties given by bureaucracy, interests, but he succeeded, just as he hopes to succeed in bringing the people together again in the church, after the difficult period in which the places of worship were closed.
The place of worship belongs to the Romanian Patriarchate and is dedicated to the Holy Martyrs Brancoveni - ruler Constantin Brancoveanu, with his four sons: Constantin, Stefan, Radu and Matei, considering that no one in history has given proof of a greater spirit of sacrifice in the name of faith than this leader. As Father Sorin Huluta says, not only Bessarabian Romanians come to the church, but also those "who do not yet know that they are Romanians".
"This is how I like to say, because there are two categories of Bessarabians, of Moldovans: some who found out that they are Romanians and some who are still struggling and are in the dark and have not come out yet, but we are helping them slowly, dripping them with certain words throughout Sunday, things that they must know, in order to know their origins and return with love to the Church of the Romanian nation, not the Church of the nation, as some say, but the Church of the Romanian nation. We try to do everything we can and, as a parish priest, I have close-hearted people with me. We always mark the day of December 1, the day of March 27 - the day of the union of Bessarabia with Romania," the priest says.
The Holy Martyrs Brancoveni Church is not large and often becomes cramped not only for services, but also for certain activities the priest initiates. The parish priest was involved in many projects, knowing that the purpose of the Church is not only to take care of the salvation of the souls of its believers, but more is needed.
Exhibitions, concerts, book launches were organized in the church, and important days in the history of Romanians are solemnly celebrated.
"I put the church at the disposal of all those who wanted to benefit from a welcoming space and a non-secular but religious space. I think that every activity and every event reached its goal. In fact, the goal of every activity we do here is to support the Romanian Spirit, because beyond the fact that we are in the church and that we deal with the spiritual part, one of our goals is to keep the community of Romanians from Soroca together and help the promotion of the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Romanian culture in this space on the edge of the country, from here, as the great Eminescu said, Romanian spirit starts - from the Dniester to the Tisza," the father says.
As the financial situation of many people in the area is precarious and because the good deed must not end, as the priest says, the Holy Martyrs Brancoveni Church also carries out social-philanthropic activities, being involved in supporting elderly people in need and disadvantaged families.
"We continue the liturgy by offering social services for as many of our beneficiaries as possible. Right now we are running a project supported by Help Age International Moldova, a project dedicated to the elderly, which we are doing with senior volunteers. Beneficiaries are Moldovans and Ukrainians, as it is a project focused on supporting the elderly from the two ethnicities. We offer them a safe space, we have a social center, where once a week they come and participate in different activities. Thus they leave the house, socialize, become more open, get out of the monotony of life. Unfortunately, in Moldova as well, when a man retires, he enters a cone of shadow and stays somewhere in his house, no one is looking for him, no one wants him, no one needs him anymore. We want to overcome all these shortages and succeed in helping them to be together and have a place of their own, where they can drink tea, socialize, play board games,', the priest explains.
He came to Soroca 12 years ago, only with his wife and the child they had then, because in the meantime two more babies were born. He didn't know anyone. He gathered around him people who had the same creed. When even he didn't think that his dream of building a church in Soroca would come true, he had support from a few kind-hearted people. One of them is teacher Ana Bejan, who put her whole life in the service of culture and the idea of unity, not only when she was a Prefect of Soroca county or Deputy in the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova.
"An extraordinary religious community was formed in Soroca. People come here, many of them intellectuals, because a spiritual and moral environment is created and it is an extraordinary cultural center. The father was a good fisher of people, as the Holy Scripture also says, because at the beginning he did the service with four or five people, and now he has a very large community. We are proud to have this church, thanks to the father, thanks to the priestess. I never forget to introduce her everywhere and say that the power of the priest is the priestess. If the priest has a wise, understanding and big-hearted wife, then he can do a lot,', Ana Bejan believes.
If it were according to his wish, father Sorin Huluta would not have taken Moldovan citizenship. He made a compromise and became a Moldovan citizen only to deal with the legislative hurdle he ran into when he started to erect the place of worship where he serves. He created, as he likes to say, next to his small family, the big family of Christians from Soroca, a family that he would not change for anything now.
"If I had to start over, I would only want it to be here, and if I were to stop being a priest and go back across the Prut, I would not want to be a priest there. I did it, I say, so intensely here, that I could not exercise my priesthood anywhere else, but only here, with these people, with my dear Bessarabians. (...) I am both from there and from here, more from here. In Romania is also at home, but at home is more in Soroca, because here are the people I love and for whom Christ put me as a priest in their midst,'' the priest confesses.AGERPRES
