In Romania, a Roma leader is threatening to file a lawsuit in an international tribunal against the country's main religious denomination over enslavement of Roma that ended 167 years ago. Balkan Insight reports:
Dorin Cioaba, the self-proclaimed king of the Roma in Romania, told the Conference of European Roma on Wednesday in Sibiu that he will file an international lawsuit if the Romanian Orthodox Church does not recognise its involvement in the enslavement of the Roma between the 15th and 19th centuries in the Romanian Principalities.
But a Romanian Orthodox Church spokesman, Victor Banescu, on Wednesday responded that Roma and Romanians suffered together from slavery, which was abolished in the Romanian Principalities in 1855, and said the Church should not be singled out for exclusive responsibility.
“It is unfair to select only a certain category of facts, such as ‘slavery of the Roma’, and to apply this judgment key to only one institution, the Romanian Orthodox Church,” said Banescu....
The Roma who arrived in Moldova or Wallachia at first became slaves of the rulers. Over time, they became the property of monasteries or boyars, as confirmed by medieval historical sources.
The British historian Angus Fraser, a specialist in the history of the Roma, has said: “The Roma slaves of the monasteries often lived in their premises and performed certain jobs or were servants. Their situation was superior to the field working gipsies.”
