Bessarabia

Born in Paris, the son of Jewish immigrants from Bessarabia, a region in Eastern Europe that now straddles Moldova and Ukraine, Mr. Badinter was raised to respect the liberal values and tolerance of the French republic.

He was the son of immigrants from Bessarabia, not the grandson.

Friday’s ceremony celebrated the 105th anniversary of Great Union Day of 1918 when modern-day Romania was formed after its unification with the neighboring regions of Transylvania, Bessarabia and Bukovina.

But parishioners are divided between two churches -- the Moldova Metropolis, subordinate to the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Metropolis of Bessarabia, which reports to the Romanian church.

Vladimir last week also defrocked six priests who had left his church to join its rival, the Metropolis of Bessarabia, which commands 25 percent of dioceses in the country.