Meanwhile in Romania...

[Zenith]

It's nice I found English articles about it,
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/181093...asses.html

http://patriarhia.ro/enrolling-for-relig...27-en.html

So, we've got quite a controversy here, in the latest months, with all kinds of TV broadcasts with fanatic Church representatives & supporters who get all crazy about the idea that a man should be FREE to choose for his son not to join the Divinity classes (aka Religion classes) - which mostly means Christian Orthodox - insisting that the class of Religion must be compulsory for everyone (including children of atheists and agnostics), in order for them to receive a "proper education".

Now that the Religion class became optional, in the meaning that the parents of the children must sign a request for their children to join the Religion class, the Church came with the following initiative: A contest is organized where the children write an essay entitled "Why is the Divinity class important to me?"
Additional notes: "Several prizes will be granted for each of the three education cycles (primary, gymnasium, high school), like this: 1st prize - 700 lei, 2nd prize: 500 lei, third prize: 300 lei. There will be a special prize, 1000" (prizes for "the most beautiful essay on the subject")
The minimum net wage in Romania is ~600 lei (aprox $150), while the minium pension is ~300 lei.

"Who are invited to participate? All students who love the Religion class and desire to share with others their appreciations".
--- In other words, fearing that the number of students who attend the Religion class might drop, and thus, the teachers / priests who teach / preach there might suffer, and that the number of religious people might thus drop over years, the Church came with the ingenious idea of paying the people to choose to join the classes. Besides of the fact that, of course, many inspectorates summoned the (high) schools principals alongside Archbishops / whatever, and the Principals of the schools were being advised by these Church leaders to influence the parents into opting for the Religion class, despite the Constitutional Court who decided that the decision must not be influenced.

The following pictures are from a demonstration / protest against the decision of the Constitutional Court who decided the Religion class to be optional (for 25 years the respective law article existed against the Constitution)
The images I can read state, "The Orthodox Church is the mother of the Romanian people", "The Orthodoxy is the sap of the Romanian people", "Our voievodes have defended the Christianity of Europe", "Religion in school - National priority"






Another news comes with the title "The High All-Holy Teodosie: He would would renounce, of the parents, to the Religion class, would mutilate his own child."

Joy of joys.

P.S. Romania is 85% Orthodox, but it's unknown how many actual believers there are, because there are many who had been baptized as Orthodox, but no longer believe, or believe in God but not in the Church or whatever. So something like this would not be unnatural: Q: "What's your religion?"; A: "Orthodox"; Q: "Do you believe in God?"; "No."
Either way, the Church brags about how many supporters it has and acts as if 90% of the people are so devout that they'd be willing to die for it.

P.S. I don't know how the 'Religion' class is actually practiced in other countries of Europe, or how it's called for that sake, so an argument of the Church like "in almost all the European countries, Religion is taught within the public educational system." is very likely a fallacy.