The cathedral in danger

Hunger strikes, peaceful demonstrations, letters to the authorities, interventions of the Vatican, protests by Romanian Orthodox and Jews: the denunciations to save the Catholic cathedral of St. Joseph in Bucharest have so far (from April to the present day) proved fruitless. The cathedral is in danger of collapse due to the construction, now underway, at a distance of no more than ten metres, of an enormous building 75 metres high (19 floors above ground and 4 basement levels) called “Cathedral Plaza”. It is being built on geologically unstable terrain in an earthquake-prone area ( cf. SirEurope 32-35-43/2006 ). “I share with the Catholics of Romania a feeling of deep sorrow and impotence faced by the indifference of the Romanian authorities”, declared the Archbishop of Bucharest IOAN ROBU , in an appeal sent to the Bishops’ Conferences. The authorities, he said, “had remained impassive to the innumerable letters and protests against the illegal construction that is jeopardizing the safety and dignity of the sacred site and preventing the normal holding of religious services. By authorising the construction of this enormous building, they have inflicted a serious blow on the Romanian Catholic Church, whose faithful feel that their rights have been violated and their values treated with contempt “. NO POSITIVE RESULT. In spite of the protest actions, which have now taken extreme forms such as hunger strikes and attempts to stop trucks arriving at the building site, no positive result has yet been achieved. “By authorising a gigantic building in close proximity to the cathedral – explains the archdiocese of Bucharest -, the authorities have blatantly violated Romanian Law 422/2001 for the protection of historical monuments; in addition, 24 other Romanian laws have been partially or totally violated by the irregular or defective way in which the building work has been conducted”. Moreover, in the authorization of the new building, it is not specified “who shall be responsible for any damage caused to the cathedral”, in other words, “the only body liable for its repairs”, according to Romanian law, will be its owner. The Catholic community considers that “the indifferent and irreverent manner” in which the authorities conduct themselves reveals “an evident anti-Catholic intention as in the worst totalitarian regimes”. After the official statement of the Vatican, other high-ranking churchmen have intervened: they include Cardinal Mossa I Daoud, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, the Vatican Secretary for Relations with States Monsignor Giovanni Lajolo, the Archbishops of Vienna and Padua, the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Jewish community of Bucharest. THE PROJECT IN QUESTION . In 1995, a huge office building that would completely conceal the façade of St. Joseph’s cathedral was planned on a site of 1,800 square metres facing the cathedral, at the corner of the street named after General Berthelot. The archbishop opposed the project for three years. In 1999, through the engineer then working on the restoration of the cathedral, a new project was proposed confined to half of the site. The Archbishop of Bucharest, not having sufficient information about the real project, signed a letter in mid-1999 that recommended the construction of a relatively high building in the vicinity of the cathedral (17 m high). This agreement in principle was given for a project quite different from the one now being built, and was withdrawn in 2001. At the time, the investor offered the archdiocese, in exchange for a nominal rent, offices and parking space in the new building, while refusing to give any assurances, or provide any safeguards, for the safety of the cathedral. In 2001, a building site was opened right in front of the cathedral for the construction of a new bank. It caused damage to another property forming part of the archdiocesan complex. Not long after, a very serious accident happened to the Armenian church of Bucharest, due to the construction of an office block beside it. Following these events, the Catholic archbishop of Bucharest repeatedly opposed the project. THE PROTEST AND THE DANGERS . The protests began in April, though without convincing the authorities (the mayor of Bucharest, the Minister of Culture or the Prefect of the capital) to find a solution. On 25 May a human chain was formed round the cathedral and the most important churches of Romania. But the work on the new building continued by day and by night, seven days a week, exposing the cathedral to continuous vibrations. The national Institute for Building Research, which also includes seismological research, publicly reported the danger of building skyscrapers in the centre of the capital. The cathedral of St. Joseph has little chance of surviving new earth tremors, given the serious damage to its masonry it already suffered during the earthquakes in 1929, 1940, 1977, 1986 and 1990, as also following the bombardment of 1944. In particular, the construction of four basement levels in the new building represents an enormous obstacle to the ground water that normally flows in a north-south direction, thus jeopardizing the foundations of the church (the same phenomenon caused damage to the Armenian church five years ago). After having caused this damage, the pressure of the water will cause a rise in level of the cathedral, while the Calvinist church, situated behind the new building will collapse.