ROMANIA, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN

Located in southeastern Europe, Romania (formerly "Rumania") is bordered on the north by Ukraine, on the east by Bessarabia and the Black Sea, on the south by the Danube River and Bulgaria, and on the west by Serbia and Hungary. While Romania contains portions of the Carpathian Mountains and the Transylvanian Alps, much of the country's landscape is characterized by rolling hills and fertile farmlands. Romania's natural resources include timber, natural gas, coal, iron and a declining reserve of petroleum. Occupied by a communist regime between 1947 and 1989, the nation's barren industrial base was in the process of regeneration by 2000, with the mining, timber and construction materials industries among the nation's major exporters.

Romania has its roots in the ancient Roman province of dacia. Although a Latin people through the early influence of Bulgar invaders most Romanians adopted the Byzantine tradition that would ultimately evolve into the Romanian Orthodox Church. Meanwhile, Latin Catholicism developed strong roots in Transylvania while that area was under the domination of the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs, although many Transylvanian Catholics went on to convert to Protestantism under Turkish rule. The Turks also sent Greek princes to rule in Walachia and

Moldavia, establishing a Greek-Catholic presence through relations with monasteries in Greece. As a result of these diverse political influences, several churches evolved in Romania: the Latin or Roman Catholic Church, the Byzantine or Greek-Catholic Church, and the autocephalous Romanian Orthodox Church. The essay following this introductory section presents discussion of these churches within several historical epochs.

Early History to World War II

Christianity first came to the region in its Latin form and by the 3d century had penetrated the region near the Black Sea (modern Dobruja), which later formed the ecclesiastical province of Scythia, with Tomi (now Constanta) as metropolis. To the west, on the right side of the Danube, there existed the Diocese of Remesiana (near modern Palanka), whose bishop, St. nicetas, a renowned Latin Christian writer, was venerated as the apostle of the Romanians. Christianity all but disappeared from these regions during the Bulgar invasions and the subsequent migration, which began in the 6th century and lasted for several centuries. During the Bulgarian rule that began in the 8th century, the Slavonic language spread and the by zantine christianity became the predominant faith among the Romanians. Even after Bulgarian supremacy ceased, Slavonic remained the official language for the liturgy and also for the chanceries of Walachia and Moldavia.

Hungarians moved into the Transylvania region c. 1003. In the 14th century Walachia and Moldavia arose as independent principalities, but from the 16th to the 19th centuries they served as vassals to Turkish overlords while still retaining much of their autonomy. In 1859 these various principalities united under Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza and in 1861 adopted the name Romania. After suffering a land shift during the Russo-Prussian War of 1877, Romania gained complete independence in 1878 and became a kingdom in 1881. At the start of World War II the country was ruled by Michael I, who remained king until his abdication in 1947.

Development of a Byzantine Tradition. During the 17th century the Romanian Church in Transylvania experienced pressure by Hungarian Protestant princes, especially those of the Rákóczy family. To resist this threat, a synod met in Iaşi in 1642 and condemned the Romanian catechism published by Prince George Rkóczy because it contained Calvinist doctrines. Union with the Catholic Church was also attempted at this time. In 1690 Austrian armies liberated Transylvania from Turkish domination and established Hapsburg rule. After negotiations with Romanian bishops Theophilus and Athanasius, a general synod of the Romanian clergy met in Alba Iulia (Oct. 7,1698) and agreed to unite with the Catholic Church on the basis of the Ecumenical Council of Florence. While it was hoped that this union would include all the faithful of the Romanian rite, it did not turn out that way: a large part of the clergy and laity remained Orthodox. The Council of Florence marked the division of the region's Byzantine-rite Catholics into Romanian Orthodox and Greek-Catholics.

The Rise of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Because of the influence of the Bulgarian Church, Romanians had begun to embrace the Byzantine rite by the 10th century. They also imitated their Bulgarian rulers by adhering to the easternschism. When the Danubian principalities of Walachia and Moldavia were formed in the 14th century, the rulers requested the patriarch of Constantinople to erect a metropolis in their country. In 1359 Walachia received a metropolitan, who resided in Arges (later in Bucharest). Moldavia gained a metropolitan c. 1400; his residence was in Suceava (later in Iaşi). During the 15th century the Romanian principalities battled the Turks, and Pope Sixtus IV dubbed Prince Stephan the Great (1457–1504) an "athlete of Christ" for his valiant defense of Christianity during this period. While attempts were made to unite the Romanian Orthodox and the Latin-rite Church prior to the Ecumenical Council of florence they were ultimately unsuccessful.

Under the protection of the powerful Turkish princes of Walachia and Moldavia, Orthodox Christianity flourished during the 17th and 18th centuries. Rich gifts and foundations enabled monasteries at Tismana, Voditza, Neamt, Putna and elsewhere to become religious and cultural centers. From 1711 to 1821 the Turks sent Greek princes (phanariots) to rule Walachia and Moldavia; these men became generous benefactors of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and of the Greek monasteries at Mt. Athos, Mt. Sinai, Jerusalem and elsewhere. On the whole, Greek influence in the Romanian principalities increased under the phanariots, and by 1863 Greek monasteries possessed one-fifth of the land; their holdings were later secularized (see constantinople, patriarchate of; orthodox church of; romanian rite).

In 1721 the Diocese of Făgăraş was erected for Romanian-rite Catholics. Its seat was transferred to Blaj in 1738, under Bishop Innocent Micu-Klein (1728–51), who also worked for the political and cultural emancipation of the Romanian people. He and his successors founded several schools that would become centers of the Romanian national renaissance. In 1777 the Diocese of Oradea Mare (which had been a ritual vicariate since 1748) was erected. In 1853 Pius IX created an ecclesiastical province for Catholics of the Romanian rite. fĂgĂraŞ (with the addition of the historical name Alba Iulia) became the metropolitan see, with Oradea Mare, Gherla and Lugoj newly founded as suffragan sees.

The Romanian Orthodox Church declared itself autocephalous and independent of the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1865, and this status was finally acknowledged in 1885. The metropolitan of Bucharest thenceforth held the title of primate. At that time Romanian-rite churches existed in Transylvania and Bukovina, which were part of Austria-Hungary. After the Kingdom of Romania was formed following World War I, the ecclesiastical union of the region quickly followed. On May 4, 1925 the Romanian patriarchate was erected, composed of five metropolitanates embracing 18 dioceses. The head of this autocephalous church was called archbishop of Bucharest, metropolitan of Ungrovalachia, and patriarch of Romania.

Latin Catholics. During the Middle Ages, following the slavonisation of the Bulgarian overlords, attempts were made to reintroduce the latin church into Romania. Franciscan and Dominican missionaries worked there from the 13th century. While several bishoprics

were established, including Milcovia (1228), Severin (1369), Sereth (1371), Arges (1380), Civitas Moldaviensis (Baia, 1420) and Bacău (1611), these sees were short-lived, and some never had resident bishops. In the 17th century care of the Latin Catholic minority residing in Moldavia was entrusted to Conventual Franciscans under a vicar apostolic, and care of those in Walachia, to Passionists. A Catholic bishop resided in Bucharest from 1792. In 1883, after emigration from Austria-Hungary, Italy and other countries had increased the numbers of Latin Catholics in Romania, the Archdiocese of Bucharest for Walachia and Dobruja and the Diocese of Iaşi for Moldavia were erected.

In Transylvania, which was part of Hungary after 1003, Latin Catholicism was solidly rooted. The region's Hungarians, Siculs (Székelyek) and other related ethnic groups were joined in the 13th century by Germans from Saxony. For these Latin Catholics the Diocese of Transylvania was erected in 1103 with its seat in Alba Iulia. When Transylvania became a vassal principality under Turkish rule in the 16th century, most of Transylvania's Catholics embraced Protestantism: the Germans became Lutherans; the Hungarians, Calvinists; and the Siculs, Unitarians. In 1558 the Catholic bishop was exiled. In the provinces of Criana and Banat (in the southwestern part of modern Romania), Csanad became a diocese in 1035, and Oradea Mare, in 1077. The See of Satu Mare was erected in 1804.

The hierarchical structure for all Latin-rite dioceses was eventually reorganized according to the Romanian Concordat (1927) by the papal bull Solemni conventione (June 5, 1930). The Diocese of Timişoara was created for Romanian Banat. The Dioceses of Satu Mare and Oradea Mare were united, with the episcopal residence in the former city. Bucharest became a metropolitan see, with Alba Iulia, Iaşi, Satu Mare, Oradea Mare and Timişoara as suffragans.

World War I and After

During World War I Romania fought on the side of the Allies. Although suffering many human losses, a decision reached through regional assemblies (1918) and international treaties following the war (1919–20) gave Romania Transylvania, Bukovina, Bessarabia, southern Dobruja and eastern Banat. Pressured by political allies to join the Axis powers during World War II, Romania was invaded by the USSR in 1944, and withdrew from the war. The loss of Bessarabia, northern Bukovina and southern Dobruja preceded the country's adoption of a new constitution on Dec. 30, 1947 as the Communist People's Republic. In 1965 it became the Romanian Socialist Republic, with political power in the hands of Nicolae Ceauşescu as first secretary until he assumed the title of president in 1974.

Romania Suffers Communist Repression. Both through the new constitution of 1948 and subsequent laws, the special privileges enjoyed by the country's churches were abolished. The communist government ended all church control in schools, and mandated that all churches must secure statutory approval before being allowed to function. The Concordat with the Vatican (July 17, 1948) was unilaterally abrogated, and in 1949 all religious orders were suppressed. Even more dramatically, the government decreed that the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church was illegal; its membership was incorporated into the Romanian Orthodox Church and its property either destroyed, put under state control, or transferred to the orthodox church.

Romania's Communist government continued its antireligious policies unabated until December of 1989, affecting each of the nation's churches in different ways. All churches, even those in favor with the state, were closely supervised by the Department of Cults and were subjected to the brutal methods of the dreaded Securitate, the Romanian secret police.

The Romanian Orthodox Church. On May 24, 1948 Justinian Marina (1901–77) became patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Well known for his socialist views and a personal friend of the first secretary of the Romanian Communist Party, Justinian guided the Orthodox Church through an initial period of vicious Stalinist persecution which saw the nationalization of church property, the imprisonment of thousands of clergy, a reduction of the number of Orthodox diocese to 12, and a reduction of the numbers of monks and nuns in the monasteries from over 7,000 in 1956 to 2,200 by 1975. Justinian later worked with communist leaders to establish a modus vivendi known as "The Romanian Solution."

Justinian accepted the narrow boundaries drawn around his church by the state in return for government toleration of a certain level of ecclesial activity. Even under a repressive political regime, he was able to oversee monastic reforms, improve the level of education of the clergy, and preserve many important historic churches, monasteries and other monuments.

Justinian led the Orthodox Church in a policy of accommodation during the Ceauşescu regime because Ceauşescu, who came to power in 1974, promoted a nationalist form of communism that included a role for the church in the life of the nation. Indeed, many Communist officials considered themselves Orthodox Christians.

Following Justinian's death in 1977, Justin Moisescu was elected patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church. More academician than politician, Justin was criticized for bowing to the government's decision to demolish some 24 churches and three monasteries in central Bucharest and for his handling of the defrocking and imprisonment of certain Orthodox priests opposed to the Ceauşescu regime. Even so, by 1985 the Romanian Orthodox was the most vigorous church in Eastern Europe, boasting 17,000,000 faithful (80 percent of the Romanian population). There were six seminaries and two theological institutes, one in Bucharest and one in Sibiu. High-quality theological journals were published, including three by the patriarchate itself and one by each of the five metropolitanates. In addition, the patriarchate was able to publish several volumes in a series of Romanian translations of the Philokalia, more than 30 in a projected series of 90 volumes of translations of patristic writings and an assortment of Bibles and other liturgical and theological works. In addition, the church published the theological contribution of Dumitru stĂniloae (1903–93), one of the most prominent Orthodox theologians of the 20th century.

Following Justin's death in 1986 Teoctist Arăpaşu, was elected patriarch. Teoctist had to contend with not only the destruction of more churches in Bucharest but even the government's desire to demolish the patriarchal complex in the capital and transfer the see to Iaşi. Teoctist was able to direct the republication of the 1688 Bucharest Bible, an event that illustrated the central role the church played in standardizing the Romanian language and influencing Romanian culture. Making several trips abroad, Teoctist became the first Romanian patriarch in history to visit a Roman pontiff when he met John Paul II in Rome on Jan. 5, 1989. (It was later revealed that the patriarch had acted against the wishes of the government in meeting with the pope.)

Latin Church Suffers under Communism. While the Orthodox Church managed to prosper under communism, such was not the case with the Latin Church. The declaration of the Communist People's Republic in Romania on Dec. 30, 1947 was quickly followed by repressive policies focused against all minority religions, among them the Latin Church. Stalinist policies included abrogating the Concordat of July 17, 1948, closing down all Latin dioceses but Alba Iulia and Iaşi, and engaging in a policy of religious persecution. Five of the six Latin bishops were immediately imprisoned, with the last sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1951; several would die while incarcerated. Priests refusing to convert to the Orthodox faith were first imprisoned, then freed and dispersed. By 1965 Alba Iulia would be the sole diocese with a Latin bishop, and many Romanian Catholics had fled abroad, 7,000 making their way to the United States. To provide pastoral care for these refugees, a titular bishop resident in Rome was appointed in 1960.

Although the government severely restricted its activity, it continued to tolerate the Latin Church because of Romania's need to maintain good relations with its communist neighbors, countries to which most Roman Catholics were ethnically linked. The diocese of Timişoara in the Banat comprised predominantly ethnic Germans, while dioceses in Transylvania (Alba Iulia, Oradea Mare and Satu Mare) were mostly Hungarian. The Latin Catholics in the Archdiocese of Bucharest and the Diocese of Iaşi were mostly ethnic Romanians or, according to some theories, Romanianized Hungarians called Ceangai.

The predominantly German diocese of Timişoara faced special problems because of the Ceauşescu government's decision to allow the emigration of ethnic Germans from Romania upon payment of a price by the West or East German government. Between 1977 and 1992 the number of ethnic Germans living in Romania fell from 359,000 to 119,000, drastically reducing the number of Roman Catholics in the diocese. Of the 210 diocesan priests present in 1967 only 89 remained by 1992.

Many of the problems plaguing the Roman Catholic Church were related to the situation of the Hungarian minority in Transylvania: catechisms and prayer books in Hungarian were unavailable until 1976, and Bibles until 1980. In spite of Vatican II's sanction of the use of the vernacular in the liturgy, Mass in Romanian was forbidden by the government outside Moldavia and Bucharest until 1978.

In line with its efforts to persecute the Church, the government prevented Catholic bishops from leaving Romania to attend Vatican II, and banned access to the conciliar documents for many years. Limited contacts with the Holy See were resumed only after a 1967 visit to Romania by Cardinal König of Vienna. Still, Romania was the only Eastern bloc government to decline sending an official delegation to the installation of John Paul II in 1978.

During the four decades of communist rule, government-sponsored repression occasionally eased. Closed seminaries in Alba Iulia and Iaşi were reopened in 1952 and 1956 respectively, and by the mid-1970s they were allowed to receive as many students as they wished. However, such permissiveness was only temporary; in 1982 the government imposed a limit that required 20 of the 192 students at Alba Iulia to be expelled. In 1948 there were 1,180 Latin priests in Romania; by 1988 there were only 800, 60 percent of them over the age of 60. Besides three small, token communities that were not allowed to receive novices, religious orders were banned during the communist years.

After the repressive Ceauşescu regime took power in 1974, limited progress was made on the appointment of Latin bishops (Alba Iulia was the only Catholic diocese with an ordinary by 1965). In 1972 Antal Jakab was ordained coadjutor with right of succession to Bishop Aaron Marton of Alba Iulia; he succeeded in 1980. In 1981 Lajos Balint was appointed auxiliary; he became bishop after Jakab's retirement in 1991. In 1983 the Holy See was allowed to appoint priests as ordinaries ad nutum Sanctae Sedis of the dioceses of Timişoara and Oradea Mare, and later for Iaşi. In 1984 the pope was able to name a Latin bishop for Romania for the first time since 1950 when he appointed Bishop Ioan Robu as apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Bucharest.

Romanian Greek-Catholic Church Outlawed. The fate of the Byzantine-rite Greek-Catholic Church under Romania's Communist government was much worse than it was for the Latin Church. A mock Greek-Catholic synod was staged that abolished the Church's union with Rome on Oct. 21, 1948. On Dec. 1, 1948 communists issued a decree formally dissolving the Greek-Catholic Church and confiscated all its property, turning most of its 2,588 churches within 1,794 parishes over to the Romanian Orthodox Church. All six Greek Catholic bishops were arrested on the night of Dec. 29–30 1948. Five of them died in prison; the sixth, Bishop Juliu Hossu of Cluj-Gherla, was released from prison in 1964, but placed under house arrest at Caldarusani Orthodox monastery near Bucharest, where he died in 1970. In 1973 Pope Paul VI announced that he had created Hossu a cardinal in pectore in 1969.

A Greek-Catholic hierarchy continued, however, in the underground. Before he was expelled from the country in 1950, the last papal representative, U.S. Archbishop Gerald Patrick O'Hara, secretly ordained five Greek-Catholic bishops. However, the communist Securitate broke into the nunciature, obtained a list of these bishops, and later imprisoned all of them. Some were released in 1964 and three were still alive in 1989.

Until 1989 Communist authorities maintained the position that the Greek-Catholic Church had freely and spontaneously asked for reunion with the Orthodox Church, and that it had simply ceased to exist. The Romanian Orthodox Church officially supported this position. In reality, the brutal suppression of the Greek-Catholic Church was strongly resisted and even occasioned heroic defiance of the regime.

Although a few Greek Catholics attended Latin liturgies, most continued to frequent their former parishes where, although they had officially become Orthodox, little had changed. There were also a few clandestine priests with secular jobs who met secretly with small groups to celebrate the sacraments, mostly in private homes, throughout the persecutions. The Securitate knew the existence of these groups, but as time went on they were tolerated as long as they stayed out of public view. The underground bishops even succeeded in training and ordaining a few men to the priesthood. Early in Ceauşescu's regime the surviving bishops made repeated requests for the reinstatement of their church, and in 1980 they even appealed to the Madrid Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The Fall of Communism. In December of 1989 Romania's communist government toppled, the political overthrow of Ceauşescu signaling the end of four decades of repressive rule. The new Romanian Constitution, adopted in December of 1991, guaranteed religious freedom. Article 29 prohibited any restriction of religious beliefs, guaranteed freedom of conscience and stated that "all religions shall be free and organized in accordance with their own statutes, under the terms laid down by law." It also forbade all forms of enmity among religions and declared that while religious cults are autonomous from the state, they also enjoy support from it, "including the facilitation of religious assistance in the army, in hospitals, prisons, homes and orphanages." The right of parents to provide for the religious education their children was also assured.

While communists would continue to hold political offices in Romania for several more years, their power was greatly diminished, and their increasingly liberal social policies ushered in a new era for Romania's churches, allowing them to function freely for the first time in decades. However, these new freedoms also led to inter-church conflicts, some of which would remain unresolved into the next century.

Orthodox Church Issues Apologies. The end of Ceauşescu's regime triggered a mixed response in the Romanian Orthodox Church. While the Church began the difficult task of rebuilding, it also had to deal with strong criticism over its public support of the Communist government. The Holy Synod met on Jan. 10, 1990, apologized for those "who did not always have the courage of the martyrs," and expressed regret that it had been "necessary to pay the tribute of obligatory and artificial praises addressed to the dictator" to ensure certain liberties. It also annulled all ecclesiastical sanctions it had been compelled to impose on members of the clergy for political reasons. In the face of harsh criticism for his collaboration with the Communist regime—it was even alleged that he oversaw an information exchange between confessional priests and the communist Securiate—Patriarch Teoctist resigned his office on Jan. 18, 1990. However, in early April Teoctist was asked to resume his duties by unanimous decision of the Holy Synod, which reasoned that his presence was valuable in maintaining continuity in the face of political change.

A few days after the fall of the Ceauşescu regime, a "Reflection Group for the Renewal of the Church" was established in Bucharest. Its seven clerical and lay members set out to interpret what they saw to be a growing desire among the Orthodox faithful for change and renewal in the life of the church, and to initiate a dialogue with the Church leadership to help it overcome the current "spiritual impasse." On June 7, 1990 a member of this group, 38-year-old auxiliary bishop of Timişoara, Daniel Ciobotea, was elected metropolitan archbishop of Iaşi, the second-ranking post in the Romanian Orthodox hierarchy. His election to the see from which all previous Romanian patriarchs had been taken was part of an effort to reform the Church and provide it with new and more vigorous leadership.

In September of 1990 the Holy Synod approved important modifications to the basic statutes of the Patriarchate. It removed those sections providing for state interference in the Church's affairs and declared the full autonomy of the Church from the State. At a meeting in January of 1993 it re-established two jurisdictions in areas that had been part of Romania before World War II: northern Bukovina (later in Ukraine) and Bessarabia (most of which became the independent republic of Moldova). This move sparked a confrontation with the Moscow patriarchate to which the Orthodox dioceses in those regions had belonged since World War II. Most Orthodox in those areas remained in newly established autonomous jurisdictions associated with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Communist Support Bolsters Demographics. In 1948, just prior to the country's communist takeover, Romanian Orthodox Catholics had numbered close to ten million; Greek-Catholics, as the country's second largest religion, 1,560,000; Latin Catholics 1,175,000; and Armenian Catholics 5,000. In 1992 a government census showed membership in the Romanian Orthodox Church at 19,802,389; Latin Catholics at 1,161,942, Greek-Catholics at 223,327, and Armenian Catholics at 2,023. By early 1993 the number of Orthodox seminaries in the country had risen to 18, while the theological institutes that had been allowed to function in Bucharest and Sibiu were reintegrated into their respective university faculties and ten other theology faculties were set up around the country. Monastic life once again thrived and, for the first time since 1948 churches began to engage in organized charitable activity, such as administering orphanages, hospitals and retirement homes. By the year 2000 1,628 parishes administered to Romania's Catholic faithful, while between the Byzantine and Latin Catholic Churches 1,590 priests, 180 brothers and 1,196 sisters served their faith.

Another result of the fall of Communism was the reactivation of banned Orthodox lay movements. Among the most important of these was the Oastea Domnului (Army of the Lord). Founded by Josif Trifa in 1923, this renewal movement emphasized evangelization, personal morality, an experiential relationship with God and Bible study. It grew quickly, and was absorbed into the structures of the Orthodox Church in the 1930s. During the Communist years the movement maintained a secret membership of perhaps as many as 500,000. While it again received the blessing of the Orthodox Church after resurfacing in 1990, some of its members had established connections with Protestant evangelical groups.

Latin Church Works to Rebuild. The downfall of the Ceauşescu regime affected the Latin-rite and Orthodox Churches differently. With sanctions against it now lifted, the Holy See acted quickly to provide a new hierarchy for the Latin Church in Romania. On March 14, 1990 the pope named bishops for all six dioceses in the country and a new auxiliary for Alba Iulia. On Sept. 29, 1991 the diocese of Alba Iulia was made an archdiocese immediately subject to the Holy See. Romania and the Holy See announced the re-establishment of diplomatic relations on May 15, 1992. Archbishop John Bukovsky was nominated apostolic nuncio on August 18, and the building of the apostolic nunciature was returned and officially reopened three months later. The statutes for a Romanian Catholic Bishops' Conference that included Latins and Greeks were approved ad experimentum on March 16, 1991, and Greek-Catholic Metropolitan (later Cardinal) Alexandru Todea was elected its first president.

The new freedoms given the Roman Catholic Church in Romania allowed an increasing number of vocations to take place. Seminaries at Alba Iulia (for Hungarian-and German-speaking candidates) and Iaşi (for Romanian-speakers) experienced a major influx of students. The same was true for the various male and female religious orders that resumed activity in the country. As had been its tradition, the majority of Latin Catholics continued to be Romanians of Hungarian descent living in the Transylvania region.

Greek-Catholic Repression Ends. The repression endured by the Greek-Catholic Church finally came to an end after the downfall of the Ceauşescu regime. A few days after the revolt, on Jan. 2, 1990, the new Romanian government abrogated the 1948 decree that had outlawed the Greek-Catholic Church. The three surviving under-ground bishops, Ioan Ploscaru, Ioan Chertes and Alexandru Todea, emerged from hiding, and 540 priests also came forward, about 100 of them elderly.

On March 14, 1990 Pope John Paul II reconstituted the Greek-Catholic hierarchy by naming bishops to all five dioceses. Todea, named metropolitan archbishop of FăgăraŞ and Alba Iulia, would be created a cardinal in June of 1991. Ploscaru became Bishop of Lugoj, while Chertes, by now advanced in years, bore the personal title of archbishop until his death on Jan. 31, 1992. In official documents the Greek-Catholic Church became the "Romanian Church United with Rome." In 1997 the Church held a provisional council in which Greek-Catholic leaders worked to set up formal statutes, and worked to heed the Pope's call to all Eastern churches to "respond to the new needs of the faithful, who have finally been delivered from the hands of oppression, but now are assailed with new mirages and must answer new challenges."

In January of 1994 the Congregation for the Eastern Churches sponsored a meeting of the bishops and other representatives of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church in Rome. A final document was adopted treating the organization of the eparchies, the formation of the clergy, the liturgy, catechetics, religious life and ecumenical relations. The participants unanimously called for the speedy canonization of those martyred for the faith during the persecutions. On July 20, 1994 Pope John Paul II accepted the resignation of 82-year-old Cardinal Todea and appointed Bishop Lucian Mureşan of Maramureş to succeed him as Greek-Catholic metropolitan.

Religious Rebirth Sparks Inter-Church Controversy. The resurgence of the Greek-Catholic Church in particular was accompanied by a confrontation with the Romanian Orthodox Church. Although the government had abolished the 1948 decree dissolving the Church and now promised to return all church property in state hands, it did not resolve the issue of ownership of churches that had been given to the Orthodox Church. In 1990 a joint Orthodox and Greek-Catholic committee was formed to oversee these property disputes.

The Greek-Catholic Church insisted that all 2,600 church properties confiscated in 1948 be returned as a matter of justice, a position they called restitutio in integrum. However, the Romanian Orthodox Church held that since the demographic situation had changed substantially since 1948, any redistribution of churches must allow for the pastoral needs of both communities, based on the results of a census and the deliberations of a joint commission. The hardening of positions created such an impasse that by March of 1993 the Greek-Catholic Church had regained only 66 of its former churches. The situation was complicated by the Greek-Catholic rejection of the results of the 1992 census, according to which only one percent of the population (228,377) belonged to this church. Statistics published in the 1993 Annuario Pontificio indicated a total of 1,842,486, while some Greek-Catholic sources claimed almost 3,000,000 members.

Although Greek Catholics later reduced their demands to under 300 properties, an atmosphere of mistrust and mutual recrimination grew between the two churches. The Orthodox portrayed Greek Catholics as less than fully patriotic and recalled the traditional identity between the Romanian people and the Orthodox Church. Some even drew a connection between the existence of the Greek-Catholic Church and a sinister effort to "magyarize" the Romanian population of Transylvania. For their part, Greek Catholics accused the Orthodox of willful collaboration with the Communists, of wholesale corruption and of perpetuating the Stalinist oppression of their church. The Greek-Catholic hierarchy also expressed fierce opposition to the work of the international commission for dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches that attempted to overcome the misunderstandings that arose in the wake of the re-emergence of the Greek/Byzantine Catholic Churches in Eastern Europe.

Romania Moves into New Millennium

In spite of the problems faced during its country's recovery from communist repression, the Romanian Orthodox Church was able to preserve the close links that traditionally existed between it and the majority of the Romanian people and remained the church chosen to preside over government ceremonies requiring prayer. Although its activity was hindered by the catastrophic economic conditions that followed the fall of Ceauşescu, the freedom of religion insured by Romania's new constitution enabled the Orthodox Church to reassert its prominent role in the country. While its spokesmen expressed concern over the "aggressive proselytism" of various minority Protestant faiths, the Romanian Orthodox Church has sought to establish the kind of relationship with the state, as well as with other churches, that would benefit a postcommunist and increasingly westernized nation.

Disputes over property continued to shadow Romania into the new millennium. Although by February of 1999 an agreement had been reached between competing church claimants that disputed buildings would be shared until the court resolved their ownership, fights and lockouts continued sporadically. Not only Greek Catholics, but also Roman Catholics, Protestants and other faiths looked to the government for help in the restoration of church structures that had been closed by the former communist regime. By 2000 most of these sites, still in the hands of the government, had yet to be restored. In addition, secular structures that had been converted into schools, post offices and other public buildings under the previous government, remained in the hands of the government despite requests either for monetary compensation or for their return to church ownership.

By the mid-1990s Pope John Paul II had become an active supporter of the Catholic Church's efforts to regain confiscated property. On May 7, 1999 he visited Bucharest and called upon Catholic bishops to be "builders of communion" in an effort to rebuild Romanian society. The Pope's visit to Bucharest marked the first papal visit to a predominately Orthodox nation.

Anger toward the Romanian Orthodox Church for its collaboration with Communist oppressors gradually healed over time, in part due to the intervention of Pope John Paul II. In February of 2000 Patriarch Teoctist also made a public apology that acted to heal the breach between Orthodox and Greek Catholics, noting "I personally ask for forgiveness and I am doing it now because I didn't have enough courage before." The Romanian Greek-Catholic Church began to regain its footing. Seminaries appeared in Cluj, Baia Mare and Oradea, and Greek-Catholic theological institutes were established in Cluj, Oradea and at the historic center of the church at Blaj. The cathedral at Blaj, along with the episcopal residence and seminary complex, was regained in October of 1990. By 2000, 142 of the 300 churches requested to be returned from control of Orthodox congregations had reverted back to Greek-Catholic ownership.

Romanian Prime Minister Mugur Isarescu and the republican government in place in 2000 worked to maintain religious freedom within Romania, and also offered tangible support to minority churches in their efforts to restore their infrastructure. In 1999 over a million dollars in governmental grants were awarded to the country's Roman Catholic and Greek-Catholic Church to aid in church construction efforts. Although the government continued to support Romania's Catholic churches, many minority faiths continued to battle for recognition under the requirements imposed by the State Secretariat for Religious Cults.

See Also: eastern churches; orthodox churches; catholic church (eastern catholic).

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r. g. roberson/eds.]