ROMANIA: Romanian police are hunting an Orthodox priest who allegedly swindled €200,000 from his impoverished parishioners.
Investigators say Valentin Petrea (24) persuaded dozens of members of his congregations to mortgage their homes and donate the proceeds for church repairs.
He then bought icons and ornate ceremonial objects for the church in the village of Cotu Vaii near the Black Sea, but disappeared with them at the end of last year.
Villagers reported his disappearance last week, and the archbishop of the diocese stripped him of the right to serve as a priest. The archbishop also criticised locals for overstating their earnings to secure the bank loans that were allegedly stolen.
It has been a torrid few months for Romania's Orthodox church, as scrutiny of its practices increases ahead of the country's accession to the European Union next January.
Last month, Vasile Mihaila (40) was fined and threatened with expulsion from the priesthood after being caught playing poker for money in a village pub.
But that relatively minor indiscretion caught the public's attention amid lingering horror at the death of a trainee nun in a remote Romanian convent last June.
Irina Maricica Cornici (23) died at the Holy Trinity convent in the northeastern village of Tanacu, after she was tied up for several days without food or water, gagged and chained to a cross during an exorcism ritual performed by a local priest.
Daniel Petru Corogeanu (29) and four nuns, who were charged with aggravated murder and illegal confinement, denied the charges and blamed the ambulance service for coming too slowly to save Ms Cornici.
While the accused insist Ms Cornici's screams and aggressive behaviour were signs of demonic possession, doctors say she was probably mentally ill.
The Romanian Orthodox Church condemned the incident as "abominable", defrocked Fr Daniel and excluded the nuns from the convent.
Orthodox monasteries and convents have flourished in Romania since the 1989 fall of Nicolae Ceausescu's communist regime, which suppressed religion. The Tanacu convent was built in 2001 by a private donor, but has not been sanctified by the church.
Critics accuse the Orthodox authorities of failing to vet and train new priests in the rush to meet demand.
