The street in Romania where the three great monotheistic religions “cohabit”. Sociologist, about the image “overshadowed by a wave of xenophobic comments”

After the re-inauguration of the Israelite Temple in Constanța, Mircea Kivu says that he found it “always fascinating” how places of worship of Judaism, Islam, Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy “coexist” in that area. The sociologist, however, draws attention to a “wave of xenophobic and anti-Semitic comments”.

The Great Synagogue was reopened on Friday, after rehabilitation works.

“I've always considered it fascinating the way the four religious edifices coexist, on the same street in the Constanta Peninsula: the Great Synagogue, the Charles I Mosque, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Anthony of Padua and the Orthodox Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul. And I was happy to hear that the synagogue, which the last time I had seen was covered in weeds, has been renovated,” said Mircea Kivu, on Sunday, in a post on Facebook.

Sharing a photo of the four places of worship located in the same area, he said “it's a shame that this iconic image is overshadowed by a wave of xenophobic and anti-Semitic comments.”

“I invite the authors of such comments to walk the route in the picture, to talk to the people they meet and… to think again”, concluded Mircea Kivu.

The historian Daniel Citirigă also spoke about the coexistence of religious communities in Constanța, who noted that at the inauguration of the synagogue, Chief Rabbi Rafael Shaffer was greeted by Iusuf Murat, the representative of the Muslim Cult in Romania.

Citirigă contrasted the event with the decision of the Romanian authorities to close the Consulate General of Russia in Constanta in response to the incident in Galați, where a Russian drone fell on a block of flats on the night of Thursday to Friday. “I would say that those who were missing came to Constanța, and those who were extra are leaving. A historic moment for the city,” he wrote in a post on Facebook.

PHOTO: Radub85 | Dreamstime.com