The Holy Synod of Romania's Orthodox Church is currently meeting to discuss what action to take against Bishop Corneliu (Onilă) Bârlădeanu of Husi, 51, who was suspended after an 18-minute video appeared in which he is allegedly seen engaging in homosexual acts with a student. The video was filmed in 2006 when Onilă was not a bishop but a professor at the seminary of Husi.
Onilă studied from 1993 to 1996 at the Protestant Faculty of Marburg University, Germany, where he was also an assistant. His studies were financed by a scholarship of the Diakonisches Werk which belongs to the German Protestant Church. In 1999 he received another scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a foundation associated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of chancellor Angela Merkel.
As a bishop Onilă collaborated with the Benedictine Monastery of Plankstetten, Germany, whose former abbot Georg Maria Hanke is now the Bishop of Eichstätt, Germany. In 2000 he participated in Rome at a Congress of …More