The Orthodox Church in Moldova has denounced the potential use of a vaccine against COVID-19, calling it a satanic plan to microchip people, or introduce other foreign devices into the human body.
The Church is in full communion with other mainline Orthodox Christian Churches throughout the world.
“The global anti-Christian system wants to introduce microchips into people’s bodies with whose help they can control them, through 5G technology,” a cleric said in a press release on Tuesday evening.
The Moldovan Metropolitan Church, the largest faith group in the country, is canonically subordinated to the Russian Orthodox Church. Official data say almost 97 percent of people in Moldova are officially Orthodox Christians, and most of them belong to this denomination.
The socially conservative Church claimed Microsoft boss Bill Gates is primarily responsible for creating microchipping technology and could therefore gain control of people through a COVID vaccine.
“Vaccination introduces nanoparticles into the body that react to the waves transmitted by 5G technology and allow the system to control humans remotely,” the Church statement said.
Rhetoric about the allegedly negative effects of 5G has been intensively promoted during the COVID-19 pandemic by conservative circles in Europe and the US, together with Russian media affiliated to the Kremlin.
The Church warned Moldovan Prime Minister Ion Chicu that if he did not lift restrictions on gatherings in churches sooner than the planned date of June 30 he would be struck off the prayer list.
“We will take the canonical and moral right to exclude you from remembrance in the Church’s prayers,” the statement said. “Do not fight against the Church, for it is Christ who defends it.”
Chicu on Wednesday urged everyone to remain calm in a Facebook post.
“Let us all pray for the lucidity and health of the people, including bureaucrats and employees and the Church,” the prime minister wrote, adding that the medical crisis “reminds us of how important it is to restore the education system in the country… in a [more] elevated society, such warnings would not appear.”
The COVID-19 infection rate in Moldova has remained high with 200 new registered cases on Tuesday alone, bringing the total case number to 6,340 and the death toll to 224.
