Romania, ….Wow!....surprise after surprise

Sorry, again the beginnings of a post  to be continued. Photos for this and the end of the Bulgaria blog will be added as soon as possible.

Constantja is not the best place to see to get a feel for Romania. Like Varna, it too has some enormous shipyards on the outskirts, and really is not the most attractive of places. A lot of it is very run down and the one thing that was true about Romania here, as well as elsewhere, is that there is clearly an inadequate amount of cash about to be able to properly restore or preserve properties that fall into disrepair. It was the place that the Romans despatched Ovid, the Roman poet, to when he fell into disgrace in Rome. It is said that he hated Constantja, which is only to be expected as then it would have been a bit like being deported from high society in London to live in Milton Keynes. I am quite pleased to have discovered this since Ovid gave me no end of trouble when I was at school, and the knowledge that he passed his final days in a trading outpost of the Roman Empire gives me great satisfaction.

Constantja is a strange town, pretty run down for the most parts but with some interesting features. On the centre square, Place Ovidius (they have at least adopted the excile poet as theirs) is a statue of Ovid, outside the large archaeological museum. Everywhere they dig they find ancient bits of previous civiliastions. Close by is one of the longest Roman mosaic pavements but this is covered by something that looks rather like a tatty bus terminal. Around this area where the pavement was found were Roman warehouses which contained spices and oils in jars. The area was virtually destroyed by an earthquake and these warehouses collapsed and were hidden under debris for centuries, but when the pavement and the remains of the warehouses were found they found many of the earthenware jars, some even in tact, and the oils and spices had congealed and become almost fossiled, so you can actually see the contents, still in the shape of the urns in which they were stored.( all in the “bus shelter”.) Adjacent to this there were a couple of quite lovely rococco buildings, both unoccupied and almost wasting away, and indeed there are many similar buildings in Contantja which deserve restoration, but which, during the recent decades of austerity have been left to rot. Noticeable for not being allowed to rot is the large central church, rich and opulent as so many are. I think if there is one thing that really has hit me on this trip, it is that the Formal Church, and by that I mean both Orthodox and Catholic, have almost disgusted me beyond measure everywhere I have been. I accept that some of them have been the most beautiful things I have seen, but the enormous wealth of their treaures, icons, gold, works of art, and the fact that all of them are selling stuff or charging for admission, is such an enathema to the teachings of Jesus and in the climate of surrounding poverty. ( I remember the priest at Glamoc in Bosnia, after the civil war in 1997. People had no houses to live in, and all he wanted was money to replace the bell in his church tower. In Livno, Rome provided the Catholic church with the money to rebuild their church and add a huge seminar and study centre to it for visting artisans, when people around had nothing.)

I do accept that they are built “ to the glory of God”, but I do not feel that this excuses the actions of amassing vast fortunes when people on their doorsteps are suffering such hardships. It is still hard to follow the teaching of “give everything away and follow me”, and clearly we cannot look to “The Church” to set this example.

Enough of this preaching. Despite this I have to admit that for the pure beauty of them, many of the churches and monasteries I have seen have been outstanding, although that doesn't make it right.