Andrei Ciurcanu 
- A former employee of Giurgiu Penitentiary manages a social media account where hundreds of users are encouraged to join prayer sessions and attend protests organised in Bucharest.
- The account is called “CG Fasting and Prayer”, and among its administrators is a user linked to the phone number used by Călin Georgescu and his wife.
- Invitations to the prayer sessions are also circulated through Telegram channels supporting the former presidential candidate. Users are encouraged to post content, trust the politician’s messages, and show up in support whenever he has court hearings in Bucharest.
- With the help of insiders, RISE gained access to information from these online channels, where collective worship sessions are organised around prayer texts centred on Georgescu.
- The social media accounts bring together conspiracy theories, Christian principles, pro-Russian narratives, as well as visions about Romania promoted by Cameroonian prophets based in the United States.
- Among the online platforms promoted through these channels is that of a monastic cell on Mount Athos, whose monks have openly supported Georgescu and George Simion while opposing Nicușor Dan, claiming explicitly that “a very large and dark beast” stands behind the current president.
- After the elections, the name of the skete to which the monastic cell belongs was included in a draft law promoted by Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), proposing annual state funding of one million euros for the religious establishment.
- The bill was adopted by the Senate and has now reached the Chamber of Deputies — the decision-making chamber — where it is currently awaiting inclusion on the plenary voting agenda.
“GOD EXISTS!”
March 24, 2026. Nearly one thousand miners gather in Victory Square to protest the government’s policies regarding the Oltenia Energy Complex. Other individuals infiltrate the protest and, to the surprise of the workers from the Jiu Valley, suddenly fall to their knees and begin shouting at the top of their lungs: “God Exists!”
Those who broke through the cordon are part of Călin Georgescu’s circle of supporters and are present at each of his court appearances, carrying banners and flags bearing the symbols of saints. Dozens of people invoking divinity accuse authorities of stealing the elections and chant the politician’s name.
One year ago, we published an article analysing how religious beliefs and extreme fasting influenced and replaced electoral debates, and how conspiracy theories were promoted through social media channels where people were encouraged to undertake total fasting and contribute donations to Călin Georgescu’s presidential campaign. Read the article HERE.
The investigation into this subject expanded further with the help of insiders who shared information and documents with us, allowing us to penetrate more deeply into the groups where users are being prepared to act in support of Georgescu.
THE FAITH CAMPS
Dressed in jeans and a green jacket, the man in his fifties kneeling on the ground clasps his hands tightly and fixes his gaze on the television cameras. After finishing his invocation to the divine, he rises and walks toward the journalists reporting from the miners’ protest. Theatrically throwing banknotes in their faces, he begins speaking in a guttural voice, loudly warning them about the capital punishment he claims awaits them:
“The Iranians are too good for you! (…) God will come upon you and you will die beside Christ’s cross. (…) Soros and all of you — do you think this land belongs to you? You should know that people are no longer stupid.”
Attila Szocs is originally from Brașov. Before cursing the journalists, Szocs had just completed a fasting session at Caraiman Monastery alongside Cezar Cătălin Avrămuță. The two were participating in a faith camp dedicated to Călin Georgescu and filmed themselves inside one of the monastery’s rooms while urging people to fast and pray for the “President-elect.”
“I advise all of you to come as close as possible to this country, to come closer to one another, just as President Călin Georgescu teaches us,” Szocs says while looking into the camera and speaking about the members of his group, who pray “for our nation and especially for our president, Călin Georgescu.”
Contacted by phone, Attila Szocs said he attended the protest because he cares about the country and about struggling people, and insisted that he was not part of any organised group. He said he knelt down because he believes that, at some point, God will deliver justice. Regarding his references to Iran and death, the man stated that he cursed the journalists because he became angry after being tear-gassed by the gendarmes:
“I got angry and said that you seem to be paid by these Soros people who are with Soros, or whoever else is part of this whole camp. It’s reality. They’re making a mockery of all these people.”
The prayer camp is the result of months of organising by a group of Romanians gathered on a WhatsApp channel called “CG Fasting and Prayer”, dedicated to Călin Georgescu. The group was created in June of last year and now includes several hundred members. Recruitment initially took place through Telegram channels also dedicated to Georgescu.
In the list of WhatsApp group administrators, we identified four phone numbers. Using open-source databases, RISE managed to identify the users behind those contacts.
The first administrator uses the name “Alina T” and is linked to an Austrian phone number.
Alina Turturea, 35, was responsible for graphics, text, and photo-video content during Georgescu’s 2024 presidential campaign. According to information obtained by RISE, she is registered at an address in a villa district on the outskirts of Vienna. Turturea also administers several Telegram channels supporting the politician.
Over the past 15 years, the Călin Georgescu family spent much of their time in Austria, where they also invested hundreds of thousands of euros in real estate. The first transaction took place on June 5, 2011, when the politician’s family signed a purchase agreement for an apartment worth €110,000 in a town near Vienna.
Five months later, on November 3, 2011, the Georgescus purchased a villa for which they paid €410,000. The property is located in Alland, a picturesque locality spread across forested hills just 30 kilometres from Vienna.
Six years later, in July 2017, the Georgescu couple sold the Alland property for more than double the purchase price — €950,000. A few days later, they bought a house with land and a swimming pool on the edge of a wooded neighbourhood in Günselsdorf. Purchase price: €530,000.
In 2021, they sold that property as well for €599,000 and decided to return to Romania. Before their first real estate transaction on Austrian soil, the Georgescus had received nearly one million euros in Romania through property deals linked to the Mazăre group from Constanța.
The second administrator uses the name “CG” and is linked to a phone number previously used by Călin Georgescu. The number was later assigned to Cristela Georgescu and to companies owned by her.
The third administrator is Iulian Crăciun, 51, a former employee of Giurgiu Penitentiary and one of the most active members of the WhatsApp group.
The fourth administrator is a user identified as “zzana2017”, whom we were unable to identify.
From the moment they join the WhatsApp channel, users are informed by Crăciun that the group’s purpose is prayer and fasting for Călin Georgescu. He describes the activity as a “spiritual commando” meant to support the politician in his struggle against aggressive enemies “who do not want what is good for this country and are under the control of diabolical forces.”
Many of the active members Crăciun addresses are women, some retired and others approaching retirement age. Phone records suggest that users are located both in Romania and abroad — in Spain, the United States, Italy, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Hungary, and France.
Everything is just one click away. Newcomers are quickly guided by Crăciun: when fasting sessions are organised, who may participate and under what conditions, and when invitations are launched for protests outside the courts where Georgescu is being tried on charges related to Legionary propaganda and an attempted coup d’état — the Tribunal, the Bucharest Court of Appeal, and the High Court of Cassation and Justice.
Since the objective is clearly defined, a special prayer has also been written for Călin Georgescu and for all those who support him.
THE ADMINISTRATORS
Inside the WhatsApp group, responsibilities are divided with strict discipline among the administrators. Every day at 6 a.m., 2 p.m., and 10 p.m., the administrator using the codename “zzana2017” informs members that it is time for prayer:
“Dear people with living souls and awakened consciences. It is time for us to unite in prayer. God help us, receive and bless our efforts.”
The same message is repeated daily at fixed intervals.
Psalms and kathismas are recited, and on special occasions a priest joins live via audio and leads a collective prayer for Călin Georgescu.
The atmosphere of prayer and calls for fasting is sometimes disrupted by messages about the “unclean one” who has taken control of Romania with the help of the “deep state.”
The person who occasionally disturbs the prayer sessions is the former employee of Giurgiu Penitentiary. Active on Facebook as well as on Telegram groups dedicated to Călin Georgescu, Iulian Crăciun believes that Romania is being poisoned by the puppets of the “Brussels sect” and that any dialogue is pointless because “you do not negotiate with devils.”
During fasting periods, Crăciun’s messages swing from one extreme to another. On the one hand, he curses the “diabolical political mongrels” from whom the Romanian people must free themselves, only to ask group members an hour later whether they had noticed that “water fasting makes us more beautiful — both in body and soul!”
Crăciun has also become convinced that the struggle against the “Brussels sect” is receiving support from across the Atlantic, specifically from the United States, where, he claims, the annulment of Romania’s December 2024 presidential elections is viewed as a coup d’état. Such intervention, according to Crăciun, can only be a divine sign — the result of fasting and prayers devoted to Georgescu, which allegedly prompted a reaction from the Trump administration. The White House has therefore joined this effort, making the “spiritual struggle now embraced at both the political and institutional level.”
Contacted by RISE, Iulian Crăciun explained that he was the one who initiated the group. He did not deny that the Georgescu couple are also among the administrators and said he consulted several priests while setting up the group — priests “who remain discreet because they are afraid of the Church.” As for the prayers dedicated to Georgescu, he says he does not know who wrote them, but that “they were circulating online and we picked them up.”
While Crăciun applauds the group members’ efforts in prayer and fasting, another administrator has taken on a different task: disseminating the messages published by Călin Georgescu and Cristela Georgescu.
That person is Alina Turturea, who makes sure that the group’s users — more than 200 people — stay up to date with the Georgescus’ social media posts, while also announcing the days and times when the politician is invited onto the sets of Realitatea TV or Metropola TV, the television station owned by the Voluntari City Hall and controlled by Mayor Florentin Pandele.
Alina Turturea also administers several Telegram channels dedicated to Călin Georgescu, bringing together more than 12,000 users. Access is granted only after administrators carefully vet those seeking entry into the groups. The screening process is intended to identify undercover operatives from “the system” who allegedly “wish harm upon the president.”
The groups are saturated with conspiracy theories, invitations to undertake total fasting, and fervent prayers for Georgescu. Members discuss the apocalypse, the perceived blunders of President Nicușor Dan, as well as the supposedly unmatched stature of Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin leader.
“The fight is between Soros’s globalists and the world represented by Trump, Putin, and Orbán,” claims one of Georgescu’s supporters, who wonders why Russia has not intervened on behalf of the politician. He also provides his own answer:
“Why is Putin silent, why doesn’t China intervene? Because there is an agreement we do not know about, and the real stake is the destruction of the Soros & Co. empire!”
And when tempers flare, Alina Turturea steps in to calm the tone. “The president does not need discord and quarrels, but believers focused on prayer, faith, and mental restoration.”
Alina Turturea has also taken on the responsibility of informing and organising members of the WhatsApp group whenever Călin Georgescu is summoned to court. Supporters are needed in order to participate in the “spontaneous” protests. When some members are unable to travel, Turturea instead encourages them to engage in prayer and reflection.
That support constantly comes from members who attend the protests and later share the emotions and experiences they lived alongside their “brothers and sisters in prayer.”
We contacted Alina Turturea to ask under what circumstances she was invited to administer the accounts promoting Georgescu and whether her role within the community is to mobilise people to attend protests. By the time this article was published, we had not received a response.
“Alina M”, for example — who describes herself on her personal blog as a clinical psychologist and healer of souls — was present both at the gatherings outside the courts and at other events dedicated to Călin Georgescu, where she reunited with fellow members of the fasting and prayer community, including those who knelt in Victory Square shouting “God Exists.”
“I promised I would share what I felt yesterday and throughout the past year. I simply have no words to describe the happiness I have been feeling nonstop since yesterday,” she begins in a message addressed to the members of the WhatsApp group.
“Alina M” and other “brothers and sisters in prayer” also stood by “the president” at the Sector 1 Court, during the celebration of the Day of the Union, and at the High Court of Cassation and Justice. This year, on April 28, Alina M and dozens of others waited for Georgescu outside the Supreme Court.
Surrounded by flags and banners depicting the Virgin Mary and Christ, Alina M wrapped a Romanian tricolour around her neck like a scarf and waited for dozens of minutes for Georgescu to emerge from the hearing so she could chant:
“Călin, Călin, the people is with you!”
From the steps of the Supreme Court, Georgescu addressed the crowd while under gendarmerie protection, and his message was later shared in the group. “We do not surrender, we are the awakened people loved by God,” his followers replied in unison.
THE TRAINING GROUND
The fourth administrator is the user identified by the initials “CG” and linked to a phone number that once belonged to Călin Georgescu and was later used by his wife. The number is now associated with an LLC — Cristela Georgescu Education SRL — a company owned by the politician’s wife.
CG rarely intervenes in the WhatsApp group discussions, but when this user does, the messages call for obedience and submission. Followers are urged to produce the “fruits of repentance,” and edits are proposed to the prayers written specifically for the politician:
“What do you say if we reformulate this prayer like this? Lord, help us, your servants, who call upon You and place all our hope in You and, if it is for the salvation of him, his family, and ourselves as a people, place Mr. Călin Georgescu as president over Romania.”
CG acts as a guide and shepherd for the flock. Whenever distractions arise that divert attention from the purpose of this virtual space — namely prayer for Călin Georgescu — CG insists on discipline and focus. The WhatsApp channel and its rules, members are told, must be respected with utmost devotion:
“Imagine that when you enter here, you are entering a training room, or a classroom. The purpose is to strengthen the muscle of faith. In the training room, we do not make noise. (…) When we leave, we are free to do whatever we want, but inside: training, training, discipline, discipline.”
The message is welcomed by group members, who react with emojis. Most of them are women. In several of Georgescu’s video interventions shared in the group by administrators, the politician addresses women directly and says he needs them to help spread his message. Why? Because he is not “a singular voice. This is the Divine voice, this is God’s plan.”
We asked the administrator identified as CG to explain why changes were requested to the prayer texts written for Georgescu’s success and rise to power, who authored those prayers, and whether the administrator believes the annulment of the elections was “the work of the Devil,” as suggested in the group discussions. By the time this article was published, we had not received a response.
The messages distributed by CG go beyond calls for prayer and support for the politician’s ascent to power. They also include the promotion of websites where Georgescu is praised by religious figures.
One such example is chilieathonita.ro. The website belongs to the monastic cell “The Entry of the Mother of God into the Temple,” whose abbot is the monk Pimen Vlad. The cell is part of the Lacu Skete on Mount Athos.
During the presidential campaign, several texts urging believers to vote for Călin Georgescu were published on the monastery cell’s website. The articles reinforced the idea that there had been no interference by foreign state actors during the campaign, that the politician was not pro-Russian, that demonic entities were involved, and that believers should remain calm because Georgescu was supported by Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “for whom he also wrote the foreword to a book.”
“Everyone should go vote and vote for Mr. Georgescu in order to avoid the greater evil, because when comparing things, Mr. Georgescu has no deviations that would be destructive to the nation,” reads one of the articles published by the platform on December 6, 2024.
The authors of the texts claim that Călin Georgescu is rejected by “the system” because he dreams of protecting the Romanian people, that a tyranny has taken hold in Romania, and that “there has been a coup d’état — a sin crying out to Heaven — and we must oppose this sin with all our strength.”
We discussed these manifestations with Mark Juergensmeyer, professor emeritus at University of California, sociologist, and pioneer in the field of global studies on political radicalisation through religious rhetoric. He explained that the wave of religious radicalisation that has spread across Romania in recent years fits into a broader international phenomenon:
“All religions function in the same way, in the sense that they provide models for divine war and divinely inspired political leadership.”
Juergensmeyer says that the religious radicalisation seen in Eastern European countries such as Romania is an effect of globalisation through social media, where part of the fanatic fringe will eventually follow the same trajectory as similar groups on other continents:
“Hard times lead to extreme religious alternatives, and the shining image of a divinely inspired leader is a compelling option for some. Over time, many peripheral supporters will fall away in disappointment, but the hard core of believers will be too ashamed to admit they were deceived and will continue within the same paradigm.”
Asked how far he believes politicians such as Călin Georgescu are willing to go in pursuit of their goals, Juergensmeyer answered that everything depends on the politician’s supporters:
“A truly megalomaniacal leader will go as far as his supporters allow him to. He will continue pushing boundaries to see how much extreme power he can exercise without consequences.”
Read the full interview with Mark Juergensmeyer HERE.
GOLD AND EURO FOR THE MONASTIC CELL
While the Athonite Cell’s website on Mount Athos portrayed Călin Georgescu as a virtuous politician devoted to the nation and to holy values, the Lacu Skete — to which the Athonite Cell belongs — was simultaneously appearing in a legislative proposal pushed by Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) in the Romanian Parliament. Through the initiative, a group of senators requested annual state-budget funding for the religious establishment.
AUR proposed Georgescu for the position of Prime Minister of Romania, while the party’s leader, George Simion, campaigned side by side with Georgescu during the presidential elections.
In October 2024, two months before the presidential elections, 14 members of Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and two independent senators submitted to the Senate a draft amendment to the law through which the Romanian State would commit to supporting three religious establishments on Mount Athos with €4.5 million annually: €2.5 million for the Prodromos Skete and €1 million each for the Cell of “Saint George the Great Martyr” and the Lacu Skete — the skete to which the Athonite Cell belongs, whose website promoted Călin Georgescu.
The draft law received a negative opinion from the Economic and Social Council, which argued that the proposal lacked proper substantiation, that there were no clear evaluation criteria, and that detailed financial reports were missing, despite the fact that “between 2007 and 2023, the Prodromos Skete benefited from approximately €34 million under the current provisions.”
The proposal was adopted by the Senate and sent to the Chamber of Deputies of Romania — the decision-making chamber — where, in September of last year, it also received a negative opinion from the government. The bill is now awaiting inclusion on the plenary voting agenda.
While AUR was promoting this legislative initiative in Parliament, the monks of the Athonite Cell were publishing articles and interviews featuring some of the most prominent figures in George Simion’s party: Dan Dungaciu, Petrișor Peiu, Mihail Neamțu, and Simion himself, whom the monk from Athos said had impressed him.
The debates filmed and published on the religious establishment’s YouTube channel revolve around the agenda and rhetoric that Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) has intensely promoted in recent years, as well as around the idea that Călin Georgescu was a long-awaited political figure for Romanians.
The narrative is largely the same throughout: the entire world is under the tyranny of Soros’s regime, the European Union is harmful, the world is not governed by politicians but only by God, Romania is “the Garden of the Mother of God,” Western European countries want Romania’s resources and finance NGOs allegedly hostile to the people, repentance and prayer are necessary for salvation, the Antichrist is promoted through the press, films, and music, and Georgescu’s “Food, Water, Energy” project is visionary.
These are only some of the themes discussed across dozens of hours of videos and messages published on the YouTube page of O Chilie Athonită and on the religious establishment’s Telegram channel.
“This is what I felt during the elections — the phenomenon I felt through Mr. Călin Georgescu, through the ‘Food, Water, Energy’ programme, through our economic doctrine, for which many accused us, saying: ‘you want to nationalise everything,’” George Simion stated in the interview published a few months ago on the YouTube page of O Chilie Athonită.
The monastic cell on Mount Athos began promoting AUR leaders as early as 2023, with guests such as Claudiu Târziu and Sorin Lavric. The following year, during the first round of the presidential elections for Cotroceni Palace, it started broadcasting pro-Georgescu messages and, after the annulment of the first round, shifted course to openly support Simion.
Support for this political formation went so far that the Athonite Cell’s website promoted online petitions initiated by Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), in which the party claimed that a coup d’état had taken place and that the elections had been stolen.
The Public Funding Controversy
In recent years, Mount Athos — and especially the Prodromos Skete, which receives annual funding from the Romanian state budget — has been used by several Romanian politicians for political capital, while the religious establishment’s subsidy from public funds steadily increased.
In 2009, former President Traian Băsescu visited Mount Athos. Ten years later, in 2019, Victor Ponta posted photos on Facebook from Mount Athos, where he had travelled together with Ion Mocioalcă, the current vice-president of the Romanian Court of Accounts. Later, in 2023, it was former Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu’s turn to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain.
The Romanian Prodromos Skete has been receiving financial support from Romania’s state budget since 2007, when Law 114 was adopted. Under that law, the monastery received €250,000 annually, earmarked for “covering the restoration, repair, and maintenance costs of the buildings within the compound and its four churches, producing promotional materials, and supporting the activities of the monks of this skete.”
In 2020, the amount increased to €960,000 through an emergency ordinance initiated by the government led at the time by Liberal Prime Minister Ludovic Orban. The explanatory memorandum stated that the annual subsidy was increased because urgent funds were needed for the consolidation and restoration of certain buildings.
In 2023, the subsidy doubled again, reaching €2 million per year through a legislative initiative introduced by the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and backed by Marcel Ciolacu, Alfred Simonis, and Ciprian Șerban. The bill was submitted to the Senate — the first notified chamber — in June 2023, one year before the presidential election campaign.
Ciolacu’s legislative proposal and its subsequent amendment coincided with multiple visits made by the former prime minister to Mount Athos and, in return, visits by monks from the Holy Mountain to Romania.
Initially, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) legislative proposal submitted in June 2023 concerned only the allocation of a 2 million lei budget for the Metropolis of Bessarabia and contained just three articles.
During its passage through the Senate, the draft was modified in a non-transparent manner, and a fourth article was added, increasing the annual subsidy granted to the Prodromos Skete from €960,000 to €2 million per year. The law was adopted by the Senate, subsequently approved by the Chamber of Deputies of Romania, promulgated, and published in the Official Gazette in November 2023.
The year 2023 was a spiritually busy one for former Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu. In April 2023, Ciolacu announced on Facebook that he had travelled to the Holy Mountain and to the Prodromos Skete “to pray for our health and for the health of all our fellow human beings.” Two months after that visit, in June, the PSD leader submitted the draft law to the Senate. Later, in September, Ciolacu received a visit from priests of the Prodromos Skete. In November, the law was promulgated, and Prodromos began receiving €2 million per year. Two months later, at the beginning of January 2024, Prime Minister Ciolacu travelled once again to Mount Athos.
Then it was AUR’s turn to demand changes to the subsidy granted to Prodromos. In October 2024, two months before the presidential elections, a group of senators and deputies from Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) requested an increase in the annual subsidy from €2 million to €2.5 million. Their justification: “The Romanian Prodromos Skete represents Romanian Orthodoxy on the Holy Mountain of Athos (…) and requires financial support.”
The Economic and Social Council issued a negative opinion on the proposal, arguing that the millions of euros already received from the state budget had not been properly justified and that the legislative initiative lacked evaluation criteria capable of ensuring transparency in the allocation of public funds.
“Between 2007 and 2023, the Prodromos Skete benefited from approximately €34 million under the current provisions. The explanatory memorandum should include a clear and documented analysis of how these funds were used over the past 16 years, including detailed financial reports. Such data are necessary in order to justify any further increase and to ensure transparency in the use of public money.”
The initiators did not provide such data. The draft law was nevertheless approved by the Senate and moved to the Chamber of Deputies of Romania, where it is still awaiting inclusion on the plenary agenda. The proposal received a negative opinion from the Human Rights Committee and was also not supported by the government:
“It is noted that, over short intervals of time, the amount granted as financial support to the religious establishment in question has been repeatedly increased, which, in our view, renders unjustified the proposal for yet another increase through the present legislative initiative.”
We asked the leadership of the Prodromos Skete to explain what sums of money it had received from the Romanian state budget over the past 18 years and whether it had provided justification for how those funds were spent. By the time this article was published, we had not received a response.
WAR, CANCER, MEDICINE
The Athonite Cell’s ties to figures within Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) run much deeper, however. The religious establishment was founded by Gigi Becali, owner of FCSB and a former AUR deputy who is now independent. Last year, during a televised appearance, Becali stated that he financed the construction of the building that now hosts the video podcasts.
“There was this party leader, and I was curious to see what he could say on Mount Athos. I was curious. (…) And I watched and saw so much hypocrisy, so much deceit and lying, and I told myself: ‘The devils have entered people.’ (…) And then the monk tells him: ‘Can you dedicate this party to Christ?’ What do you mean dedicate this party to Christ? Politics has nothing to do with Christ.”
Publicly, however, the monks of O Chilie Athonită claim that they do not engage in politics, do not support political figures, and do not practice political partisanship, but merely encourage freedom of expression, faith, and peace.
“I built that cell myself. I gave €700,000 because it was a pit… to Father Pimen Vlad,” Becali stated, while sharply criticising the video interview with George Simion published by the monks a few months ago.
The religious establishment promotes not only political figures associated with Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) and Călin Georgescu, but also their theories regarding the conflict in Ukraine and the policy of non-intervention that Romania, in their view, should embrace.
According to articles published on the religious establishment’s online platform, Ukraine was not attacked but is itself responsible for the consequences of the war.
The armed conflict is, in fact, a frequent topic of discussion among the monks. Abbot Pimen Vlad claims to have a solution to prevent the war in the neighbouring country from spreading to Romania: “All women should stop having abortions,” and 10 million people should engage in fasting and prayer. In this way, he argues, the Divine will intervene to spare Romanians from disaster.
In the monks’ worldview, the Divine permits certain wars in order to instil fear in people. But according to them, this fear is necessary because humanity places too much trust in science. For that reason, Father Pimen Vlad claims, God created not only wars, but also terminal illnesses.
“God gave cancer, for example. Medicine does everything, doctors solve everything. And then you go to the doctors and they tell you: ‘Cancer, metastasis. Go home, you have one, two, maybe three months left.’ The doctor you placed all your hope in sends you home,” is one of the statements made by Father Pimen Vlad, the monastic celebrity of Mount Athos, who has been invited to numerous mainstream media programmes and to Trinitas TV, the television channel of the Romanian Patriarchate.
The fear allegedly generated by science and medicine is also a theory embraced by Călin Georgescu. The politician, a vocal critic of vaccination, has argued that conventional medicine is useless:
“How can a doctor know? I stand in front of him and tell him I’m suffering, that this hurts — how can that man know better than I do? He can’t. Medicine was invented specifically for fear.”
We asked Father Pimen Vlad to specify what sums of money the Athonite Cell had received from Gigi Becali and how those funds were used. We also asked him to explain in what context AUR leaders had been invited for interviews and whether he had received financial support from the party led by George Simion. By the time this article was published, we had not received a response.
THE SUPPORT
Recently, at the beginning of May, Călin Georgescu travelled to Mount Athos, where he informed his followers on Facebook by publishing a photograph with Archimandrite Efrem of Vatopedi, sparking admiration across social media channels.
“He went there for three days of fasting and prayer. Let us support him as well. The devils in Romania are on alert. Călin Georgescu is on Mount Athos,” one message posted in the WhatsApp group quickly announced.
Several pilgrims who were there during the same period as Georgescu told us that the politician travelled through multiple areas of Athos and sought to photograph himself with as many people as possible. Photographs obtained by RISE show that Georgescu was accompanied by several individuals, including Marin Burcea, a former sniper, corporal in the French Foreign Legion, and coordinator of the politician’s security team.
One of the pilgrims recounted what a religious figure allegedly said after interacting with Georgescu:
“Do you know what Father Chiril from Vatopedi told our group after he escorted Georgescu to the car? Chiril said this: ‘We are doing what we can as well. Let’s hope he succeeds!’”
Author: Andrei Ciurcanu
Fact-checking: RISE Project
Romana Puiuleț 
Rise Project 
