Online Prayer Site Irks Romanian Orthodox Church

BUCHAREST, Romania -- Too busy to get to church to pray?

A Romanian company is offering believers an online service enabling them to send prayers to priests who will read them out during church services.

Romanian Orthodox Christians customarily write down prayers in church, which are then given to priests who read them out for a small fee. The prayers are traditionally for health, good exam results, happy marriages, and the forgiveness of sins.

Orthodox believers can now pay euro1 (US$1.44) per day or euro24 (US$34) online per month for their prayer to be read. Currently, just four churches are enlisted on the site.

Gandul.info reported Tuesday that the Romanian Orthodox church, to which more than 85 percent of Romanians belong, did not approve the move, warning it could lead to laziness.

On the Net.

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Comments

[Tunghoy]

06:36 PM on 06/15/2011

True story: Several years ago at a small resort, I met a lady who said she was a psychic counselor (or something like that, I don't recall exactly). One evening after dinner, she said she was going back to her cabin to keep appointments with clients who were still back home. Even on vacation, she didn't want to cancel any sessions.

"But there aren't any phones in the cabins and there's almost no cell reception here," I said. "How are you going to do it?" The lady said that her sessions would be purely psychic and that she and her customers were going to "tune in" at the same time.

I don't know if she was loopy or devious. But my guess is that she took a nap.

[Edogg62]

05:33 PM on 06/15/2011

Churches as a business?! WHAT?! It can't BE! Ha ha ha ha ha ha. "No... see... you need to come IN for us to forward your wishes to all our almighty, benevolent, vengeful prayer answering/gift giving deity or else you won't get a really cool mansion when you die... Oh, and just throw your dough in the dish before you leave... thanks a pantload."

[Keyop]

03:48 PM on 06/15/2011

Dont let young boys on this site.

[Keyop]

03:47 PM on 06/15/2011

Is this website run by Robert Tilton?

[StansDad]

03:01 PM on 06/15/2011

I still don't understand why the Catholic Church just doesn't run tubes to everyone's house to collect money from and just call it a day with all this church nonsense.

[oneyippie]

01:08 PM on 06/15/2011

Great idea! This could save the Catholic Church (and others) from Bankruptcy!

Dial-A-Prayer ain't dead yet!

Question: How much more do you have to pay to get your prayer answered?

[imonlyhereforthelaughs]

12:15 PM on 06/15/2011

Why didn't I think of this.

P.T. Barnum was right!

[JScott]

11:27 AM on 06/15/2011

There source of money would be gone.

Bet they print out their emails before they read them.

[Claw2122]

01:06 AM on 06/15/2011

What will they think of next.