Religious Strain of Anti-Vax Grows in CEE

These activists, which even include members of the medical profession, invariably sympathise with the anti-globalist, socially ultraconservative international movements, and are now finding that amongst their most influential allies are the most conservative elements of their respective churches.

Anti-vaxxers in Central Europe and the Balkans echo the arguments and fears of anti-vaxxers around the world, including the possible side effects of vaccines that they claim have not been sufficiently tested, and denounce as discriminatory any attempts to impose travel or movement restrictions on those who refuse to be inoculated.

In the region, anti-vaxxers have also put the use of foetal cell lines from abortions - sometimes deliberately misrepresented as foetal cells and tissue - in the manufacture of some of the vaccines at the centre of their objections to inoculation, which has brought in conservative voices from the Orthodox and Catholic churches.

Praying for a cure

A prominent religious figure who has publicly stated he is against the vaccination efforts against COVID-19 is Teodosie Petrescu, Archbishop of Tomis for the Romanian Orthodox Church. 

Petrescu has repeatedly defied COVID-19 government-imposed restrictions on religious events and has said about the vaccine: "I don't dare encourage anyone to get the vaccine… This is the only vaccine that has not been tested on animals and is being tested directly on humans; accidents have already happened." 

Petrescu recently declared on primetime news that, "The thing that cures the most is praying, much more than any vaccine."

Romanian Orthodox worshippers crowd around to touch Bishop Teodosie, shortly after a mass dedicated to Saint Dimitrie Basarabov, the...

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