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The Romanian Orthodox
Church and Post-
communist Democratisation
Lavinia Stan & Lucian Turcescu
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Orthodox Church and Post-communist Democratisation, Europe-Asia Studies,
52:8, 1467-1488, DOI: 10.1080/713663138
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EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES, Vol. 52, No. 8, 2000, 1467–1488
The Romanian Orthodox Church and
Post-communist Democratisation
LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
TEN YEARS OF POST-COMMUNISM have made it evident that the kind of democracy
Romania will ultimately have will be determined by a number of political actors,
including the Orthodox Church, the country’s largest religious denomination, claim-
1
ing the allegiance of four in Ž ve citizens. Since 1989 the Church has tried to become
one of the dominant forces in transition by imposing its views on democracy through
direct and indirect political engagement. This article begins by looking at the
Church’s pre-1989 position in Romania, and then considers the interplay between the
Church and the Romanian state in the democratisation process. We assess the efforts
of the Orthodox Church to carve a new role for itself in the new democracy, its
political representation, in uence on the new educational curricula and homosexual
rights, as well as the issue of restitution of property to the Greek Catholic Church.
Church-state relations before 1989
Since its early days the Orthodox Church in Romania has been known for its policy
of accommodation with the rulers of the day and silent submission to them. For a long
time the Church was in no position to do anything better. Until the middle of the 19th
century it was subordinated to a foreign patriarch, most of its wealth and the revenues
obtained from its vast lands were directed to the Constantinople patriarchate and
Mount Athos, and its hierarchy was Ž lled by poorly educated clergy. During the 16th
and 17th centuries half of the Moldovan and Wallachian metropolitans were removed
from ofŽ ce by the country’s political rulers or the Constantinople patriarch, a pattern
2
continued after the two principalities came under Russian in uence in 1812.
Half a century later Church–state relations experienced a sharp intensiŽ cation when
Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the united principalities’ Ž rst ruler, brought in radical changes.
Following a clearer delimitation of the roles and responsibilities of both the Church
and the state, and the creation of a national organisational structure, the Church
eventually emerged as an autonomous, self-governing patriarchate in the Orthodox
world. Cuza nationalised the land controlled by foreign monasteries and stopped the
transfer of funds abroad, improved the educational standards of the clergy, made
Romanian the liturgical language, and pledged state Ž nancial support for church
activities and clergy salaries. At the same time the Orthodox Church was brought
ISSN 0966-8136 print/ISSN 1465-3427 online/00/081467-22 Ó 2000 University of Glasgow
DOI: 10.1080/0966813002001246 2

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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
under regular government control, thus succumbing to the politics of the day and
losing any autonomous decision-making power in areas ranging from control over
3
monastic revenues to the nomination of its head.
When national consciousness emerged in Eastern Europe the Church joined the
bandwagon by positioning itself as pivotal for the very deŽ nition of ‘Romanianism’,
a shared identity supposedly superseding Moldovan, Wallachian and Transylvanian
regional allegiances. In doing so, the Church borrowed, and eventually monopolised,
the Transylvanian Greek Catholics’ nationalist discourse centred on the Latin charac-
ter of the Romanian language and descent. This discourse appropriation gave the
Orthodox Church growing moral and political legitimacy in the eyes of the Romani-
ans, and more recognition from the state. Before communism took over the country
the constitutional arrangements of the modern Romanian state recognised the Church
as the national church, a privileged position which still fell short of full autonomy
from the secular power.
After World War II Romania became part of the communist block. Like its East
European counterparts, the Romanian Communist Party (RCP) saw religion as a
capitalist remnant expected to wither away as its social basis disappeared, but
recognised that a Church respected by the bulk of the population could be useful for
4
furthering the party’s socioeconomic and political goals. Under communism Church
and state established a modus vivendi which allowed the Church to be enlisted as an
unconditional supporter of communist policies in return for the government’s toler-
ation of a certain level of ecclesiastical activity. Until 1965 the communist state made
considerable efforts to weaken the Church’s role in society and to bring its hierarchy
under control by legally depriving the Church of its privileged position among
churches and its right to pursue educational and charitable activities.
5
The RCP also appointed as patriarch Justinian Marina, a former parish priest with
socialist political views and a personal friend of the RCP Ž rst secretary, Gheorghe
Gheorghiu-Dej. Throughout his reign Patriarch Justinian remained a staunch sup-
porter of the communist regime but his cooperation did not spare the Church several
waves of persecution, including depositions and arrests of clergy, closure of monas-
teries and monastic seminaries, and strict control of its relations with foreign
churches. Following the 1949 ‘social reorientation’ programmes, numerous priests
considered retrograde were arrested. Another wave of arrests took place between 1958
and 1964, when monastic seminaries and monasteries were closed down and some
6
4
000 monks and nuns were jailed or forced to go ‘back into the world’. In response,
Marina tried to reform the monastic system by introducing the concept of a ‘useful’
trade that every monk and nun should know, so that monasticism would not be
regarded as an anachronism unrelated to the life of socialist Romania.
Instead of publicly denouncing religious persecution, the Church leadership turned
a blind eye to it. In 1949, when the communists deposed six Orthodox priests, the
Orthodox hierarchy responded by issuing a communiqu e´ denying any form of
7
religious persecution. That was the Ž rst in a long series of Orthodox statements
condoning the communist regime’s actions against the Church. The Church’s collab-
oration with the communist authorities went beyond occasional statements, and
included attempts by some of its prominent members to reconcile Orthodox theology
with the country’s dominant ideology. In Apostolat Social, a collection of essays and

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1469
speeches spanning most of his reign, Justinian promoted the concept of ‘social
apostolate’, which blended together Marxist–Leninist social analysis and Christian
Orthodox theology. The doctrine, whose intrinsic contradictions were never fully
resolved, had a major in uence on contemporary Romanian theologians, including
Metropolitan Antonie Plamadeala of Transylvania.
Although not a member of the Communist Party, toward the end of his rule
Patriarch Justinian had become an increasingly skilled player in the Romanian
political arena, and was thus able to obtain some concessions for his Church, while
continuing openly to support the regime. During 1965–77 the state no longer saw a
need to close monasteries, agreed to rehabilitate some formerly imprisoned clergy,
and supported Ž nancially the restoration of churches of historical importance. Yet the
relative thaw in Church–state relations was more the result of President Nicolae
Ceausescu’s shrewd calculations, using the Church to gain independence from
Moscow in order to ingratiate himself with the West, whose Ž nancial support he
badly needed for his megalomaniac industrialisation projects. At the same time he
sought to strengthen his position domestically by appealing to traditional Romanian
nationalism, which the Church considered its turf. In 1968 the RCP secretary general
acknowledged the role of the Orthodox Church in the development of modern
Romania, and in April 1972 he allowed his father’s funeral to be conducted according
to Orthodox ritual and be broadcast live on radio. Ceausescu also tacitly tolerated the
use of the baptism, marriage and burial services by communist ofŽ cials who
considered themselves Orthodox Christians. In May 1974 Marina in turn brought the
Church into the front of Socialist Unity and Democracy, a national advisory
organisation totally controlled by the RCP.
The thaw in Church–state relations did not outlast Patriarch Justinian, whose death
in 1977 coincided with the revival of an East European civil society and the onset of
a new anti-Church campaign in Romania. The communists again handpicked sub-
sequent patriarchs. Shortly after his appointment, Patriarch Justin Moisescu, a
foremost activist-theologian and ecumenical spokesman of the Church, rendered
homage to Ceausescu on the occasion of the latter’s 45-year long activity ‘devoted to
8
the progress of the Romanian people and fatherland’. Moisescu also praised Ceaus-
escu for ‘securing complete freedom for all religious cults in our country to carry out
their activity among the faithful’. His successor, Teoctist Arapasu, was a political
activist long before assuming the position of patriarch. As a bishop, he served as a
deputy in the Grand National Assembly, a participant in the Front congresses, and a
key member of the Ceausescu-sponsored National Peace Committee.
By 1979 religious persecution in Romania was on the rise again, and the Ceausescu
regime continued its anti-religious policies unabated until December 1989. In contrast
to the pre-1965 crackdown on the Church, this time several voices stood up against
Ceausescu’s blatant infringements on religious freedom. The best known dissenter
was Father Gheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa, sentenced in 1979 to prison and later
banished into exile for preaching sermons in which he described atheism as a
philosophy of despair. Moisescu allowed the Church’s ruling council, the Holy
Synod, to defrock Dumitreasa and other priests later arrested for anti-communist
9
opposition. Between 1977 and 1989 22 churches and monasteries were demolished
1
0
and 14 others were closed down or moved to disadvantageous sites. Arapasu also

1
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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
had to struggle with Ceausescu’s desire to demolish the Bucharest patriarchal
complex and transfer the see to the northeastern town of Iasi. This did not prevent him
from sending the dictator a telegram of support days after the Ž rst popular anti-com-
munist uprising started in Timisoara on 15 December 1989.
After the fall of Ceausescu the Church, and Patriarch Teoctist in particular, were
strongly criticised for supporting the communist regime to its very end. The Synod’s
1
0 January 1990 response apologised 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
11
obligatory and artiŽ cial praises addressed to the dictator’ to ensure certain liberties.
It also annulled all the ecclesiastical sanctions previously imposed on some clergymen
for political reasons. Faced with increasing criticism, Patriarch Teoctist resigned his
ofŽ ce on 18 January 1990, only to return three months later at the insistence of the
Synod. Some 136 religious and cultural leaders protested against this ‘deŽ ance of the
12
no-conŽ dence vote of the faithful that made [Teoctist] step down’, but the Synod
opted for continuity in the face of political change and acknowledged the views of the
other Orthodox churches, which went on recognising Teoctist as patriarch.
Since 1989 the Church as an institution has avoided any moral self-examination
and never openly admitted to willingly collaborating with the communist authorities
or the dreaded Securitate. Nicolae Corneanu, Metropolitan of Banat, was the only
Orthodox clergyman to acknowledge his efforts on behalf of the communist authori-
ties to inŽ ltrate Romanian communities in Western Europe and North America, and
to defrock Ž ve priests who denounced ‘the Church’s prostitution with the communist
power, and its hierarchy’s involvement with Ceausescu’s politics’ in a 1981 letter sent
1
3
to Patriarch Justin. In 1997 Corneanu revealed the extent of the Church’s collabora-
tion and named Metropolitan Plamadeala as among the most active promoters of
Ceausescu’s anti-religious and anti-Orthodox policies. In 1986 Plamadeala had
defended Ceausescu’s massive church demolition programme by contending that ‘city
urbanisation and modernisation is a general and inevitable phenomenon [which]
14
unfortunately requires, as everywhere, sacriŽ ces’.
So far, Orthodox clergy accused of having served the communist regime have kept
silent on the subject. But Orthodox theologians justiŽ ed collaboration by resorting to
the Byzantine concept of symphonia, cooperation between Church and state in the
fulŽ lment of their goals, each supporting the other and neither being subordinated to
1
5
the other. The concept binds the state and the Church so closely together that the
latter becomes a state Church, while other Christian denominations and non-Christian
religious enjoy considerably fewer rights. This view is obviously in sharp contrast to
the Western notion of separation between Church and state, which implies the
independence and sufŽ ciency of the ecclesiastical and political hierarchies. To
accommodate a hostile atheistic state, the Romanian version of symphonia entailed
some theoretical ingenuity and considerable compromises on the part of the Church.
Compared with other religious denominations the Romanian Orthodox Church had
indeed a privileged position, but continued to be only a privileged servant of the state.
Did collaboration with the communists really help the Church? Orthodox leaders
have repeatedly claimed that their political submission helped avoid a more
dreadful alternative: obliteration. Indeed, the Church not only admirably evaded the
fate of the local Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, which were subjected to

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1471
vicious persecution and suppression, but by 1985 managed to become the most
vigorous Church in the European communist block. For its anticipated loyalty and
services to the communists, it was allowed to take possession of Greek Catholic
property. Six Orthodox seminaries and two theological institutes remained open
throughout the communist period. Several theological journals, two collections of
translations of patristic writings, and the works of Father Dumitru Staniloae (1903–
9
3), Romania’s leading theologian, were published during that time. Yet collaboration
with the communist authorities failed to prevent persecution of the Church entirely
and, more importantly, entailed a Church–state partnership which was no contract
between equals but a state-dominated marriage in which Church leaders could
seldom, if ever, negotiate where the boundaries of religious activities and freedom
were to be drawn. The Church became morally compromised in the eyes of many
Romanian Orthodox faithful and intellectuals, international church and ecumenical
circles, and Western governments by its refusal to serve as a centre of opposition to
the communist regime. Its support for the communist encroachment on human rights
was strongly condemned by the Western world, a view shared by in uential
Bucharest intellectuals who deny the Orthodox Church a positive role in Romania’s
democratisation efforts.
The Church in post-communist times
After the Ceausescu regime was toppled the Church shared in the wave of enthusiasm
which swept across the country, conducting prayers nationwide for the success of the
new Romanian leaders, organising religious processions in the main cities, and
commemorating those killed in the uprising with memorial services. The end of
communism ushered in a new era for the Church and allowed it to function freely for
the Ž rst time in decades, although its post-1989 presence was initially marred by the
controversy surrounding the patriarchal ofŽ ce and its ambiguous relationship with the
former communist regime. Shortly thereafter, however, the Church emerged as a
powerful political actor and an uncontested source of moral strength, with opinion
polls constantly ranking it the most popular institution in post-communist Romania
and a vast majority of Romanians stating their full conŽ dence in it. Exactly how this
transformation occurred remains subject to debate, though several explanations can be
advanced. For many Orthodox Romanians, Patriarch Teoctist’s retreat to a monastery
and the Synod’s partial apology amounted to a long overdue mea culpa for his
Church’s role under communism. With a handful of notable exceptions, each and
every Romanian was more or less open to criticism regarding her or his compliance
with the communist regime; as such, the average Romanian was willing to overlook
the Church’s past political conformism without demanding further explanations. Its
spectacular comeback was facilitated by a host of Orthodox radio and television
programmes in which prominent theologians and clergy glossed over the Church’s
dubious past performance to present it in a favourable light. The Church also
capitalised on other political actors’ loss of capital in the face of the hardships of
transition. Both the institutions ranking highest in popularity polls, the Church and the
army, are non-elected, strictly hierarchical bodies which have neither been involved

1
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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
directly in the economic life of Romanians nor required to propose concrete
programmes of socioeconomic rehabilitation.
No analysis can ignore the Church’s skillful use of nationalism to restore its
prestige and strike a chord with Romanians. Its post-1989 discourse has underscored
the link between Orthodoxy and Romanianism, and the importance of preserving the
Romanian nation and identity in the face of growing modernisation, globalisation,
secularisation and religious proselytism. Part of the nationalist drive was the June
1
992 Synod decision to canonise 19 Romanian saints and to declare the second
1
6
Sunday after Pentecost the ‘Sunday of the Romanian Saints’. The inclusion of
historical political Ž gures fostered confusion between saints and national heroes, the
more so since some canonised rulers were known more for their intrigues and cruelty
than their saintly and Christian life. Half a year later the Church unilaterally
re-established two jurisdictions in Bessarabia and Bukovina, areas which belonged to
Greater Romania in the inter-war period but are now part of the Republic of Moldova
and of Ukraine respectively. A bitter, still unresolved, dispute ensued with the
Russian Orthodox Church, to which the Orthodox dioceses in those regions have
belonged since World War II.
The Church recently resurrected the controversial project of a gigantic ‘National
Salvation’ cathedral to be built as a symbol of the nation’s gratitude to its hero
17
martyrs and reparation for the harm the Church suffered under communism.
Responding to criticisms deploring the cathedral’s dedication to the nation rather than
to a saint, as is customary in the Orthodox world, Archbishop Bartolomeu Anania of
Cluj contended that the nation is a socio-historical, ‘metaphysical and theological
reality’, and that salvation cannot be obtained individually, but only collectively, that
1
8
is, nationally. The assertion Ž ts the bill for what the Orthodox Churches themselves
condemned in the 19th century as philetism, the view privileging race, tribe or nation
over the religious community in matters of salvation. Bucharest ofŽ cials refused the
Church permission to start construction in Union Square, one of the busiest parts of
the city. Nonetheless, without proper authorisation, in 1998 the Church laid the new
building’s cornerstone in the square in the presence of President Emil Constantinescu.
Orthodox theologians promptly warned that, according to church law, those who
transferred a plot of land destined for a church to other purposes would be
anathematised. Only the Synod could lift the ban. This was the Ž rst time in decades
when the Romanian Orthodox Church used anathema to quell adversaries but not the
Ž
rst time Orthodox clergymen forcefully designated the location of a new church.
The uneasy Church–state cooperation continued after 1989, with both Church and
state drawing hefty advantages from a partnership increasingly standing on a more
equal footing. The Church obtained key concessions from the country’s political
leaders, including some autonomy from the state, reinforced by state Ž nancial support,
the introduction of religious education in public schools, and a regular presence on the
state-controlled national television and radio. Politicians have called on the Church
for the purpose of gaining additional legitimacy, consolidating their power, rebuking
accusations of communist nostalgia and deŽ ning the limits of permissible Westernisa-
tion.
Elections and party politics have best illustrated the politicians’ readiness to take
advantage of Church–state issues, and the Church’s eagerness to reassert its promi-

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1473
nent role in the country and shape Romanian democracy according to its vision.
During the 1990, 1992 and 1996 electoral campaigns candidates of various political
persuasions wooed the Church to gain the votes of the country’s sizeable Orthodox
community. By 1996 religion had moved to the forefront of electoral debates,
compelling all contenders to deŽ ne their position vis- a` -vis the Church. The 1996
presidential candidates were careful to include visits to Orthodox churches in
their electoral itineraries, to show up for religious services on major Orthodox feast
days, and to be photographed surrounded by Orthodox icons and symbols. Some
made substantial donations for church enlargement and reconstruction, others god-
fathered orphans and witnessed marriages in widely publicised ceremonies, and
19
one candidate chose ‘He Who Votes for Me, Votes for God’ as his electoral slogan.
The highlight of the presidential race was the televised debate in which the
Christian-Democrat Emil Constantinescu surprised the incumbent Ion Iliescu, a
self-declared atheist, by asking him whether he believed in God. In the end
Constantinescu won and, in a token of gratitude, became the Ž rst post-communist
Romanian president to take his solemn oath, hands on the Bible, in the presence of
the Orthodox patriarch.
Candidates for the 1996 local and parliamentary elections also sought the
support of the Orthodox Church. A written request by Transylvanian leaders of the
then ruling Party of Social Democracy (PSD) asking the Church to urge believers to
vote for PSD candidates caused much discussion. The letter reminded the Church that
‘
the PSD government was the Ž rst in Romania’s history to grant priests bonuses’, and
claimed that Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic priests actively encouraged believ-
20
ers to vote for the major opposition coalition, the Democratic Convention (DC).
Religion seems to have maintained its saliency in 1998, when contenders for the
Bucharest mayorship went on record as attending Orthodox religious services and
giving alms, and receiving the unusual honour of being invited inside the altar
2
1
sanctuary.
The Church in turn rushed to follow the pattern of subservience to the state to
which it was historically accustomed. Days after Teoctist’s infamous letter hit the
press and Ceausescu was deposed, the Synod denounced the former ‘dictatorship’ and
reiterated its support for the new leaders. Church leaders advised clergymen to refrain
from political involvement and from joining political parties and in uencing their
22
parishioners’ political options. The same stance was ofŽ cially adopted during
subsequent post-communist elections, but clergymen did not live up to the commit-
ment of political non-involvement and took an active part in political life. Metropoli-
tan Nestor Vornicescu of Oltenia, Bishop Calinic Argatu of Arges, and Archimandrite
Simeon Tatu of the Plumbuita monastery were among the sympathisers with the leftist
National Salvation Front (NSF), the Ž rst incarnation of the PSD. Vornicescu, known
for his steadfast support for Ceausescu, agreed to be included on the NSF electoral
lists, only to withdraw his candidacy at the last minute because of public protests over
2
3
his decision. Less intimidated by public resentment, Tatu represented the same party
as a senator from May 1990 until his death in 1998. Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu
of Banat joined the pro-democratic Civic Alliance in December 1990. Though not all
the Church leaders have become party members, most have been rather open about
their political loyalties. Archbishop Pimen of Suceava is an avowed monarchist, and

1
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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
Vornicescu and Plamadeala voiced support for the nationalist Greater Romania Party
GRP).
While clergy have taken sides in the continuous battle between the leftist and the
(
pro-democratic political forces active on the Romanian post-communist political
scene, the patriarchate showed willingness to endorse either of the two, as long as
they were in power. Ten years after the downfall of communism and several political
regimes later, there is no easy answer to the question whether it was the PSD or the
DC that helped the Church the most. The PSD, whose rank and Ž le is dominated by
former communists, has feared the Church’s ascendancy in society. While party
leaders cautiously maintained good relations with the Orthodox hierarchy, they
ignored Church demands for parliamentary representation, refused to take sides in the
property dispute between Orthodox and Greek Catholics, and kept Ž nancial support
for church renovation and construction to a minimum. Apparently the Orthodox
Church’s relations with the major partner in the post-1996 ruling coalition, the
National Peasant Party Christian Democrat (NPPCD), are no better. For the Orthodox
clergy, the NPPCD is Christian Democrat only in name since, apart from electoral
rhetoric and small contributions to church building projects, only the enforcement of
religious instruction in school curricula has shown the party’s Christian dedication.
The heir to the historical National Peasant Party, the NPPCD acquired a Christian
Democrat touch only after 1989 and its identity as a Christian party remained
ill-deŽ ned and poorly integrated into its general, rightist and Western-oriented
political doctrine. Moreover, prominent NPPCD leaders are Greek Catholics vigor-
ously supporting restitution of Greek Catholic property by the Orthodox Church.
DeŽning the church’s ofŽ cial status in the new democracy
An understanding of the Church’s problematic engagement in post-communist politics
and public affairs calls for an examination of the handful of new and old legislative
acts that together regulate Church–state relations and the functioning of religious
institutions. The most important is undoubtedly the November 1991 constitution,
which, as the product of a largely secular society and self-declared atheistic politi-
cians, fails to mention the Orthodox Church but includes several provisions relevant
to its activity. References to religion and religious life are made in Article 29, which
guarantees the freedom of thought, opinion and religious beliefs when manifested in
a spirit of tolerance and mutual respect, allows religions to be ‘free and organised in
accordance with their own statutes’, and prohibits ‘any forms, means, acts or actions
of religious enmity’. The article further upholds religious denominations’ autonomy
from the state and pledges state support for religious assistance in the army, in
2
4
hospitals, prisons, care-homes and orphanages. To steer the Church away from
pernicious political in uences, the legislators stipulated that statutory rules of re-
ligious denominations were organic laws passed by the majority vote of each of the
two chambers of parliament (Article 72).
Generally, the 1991 constitution is more permissive than its 1948 and 1965
communist predecessors, which abolished church autonomy and allowed state–
Church relations to be supervised ofŽ cially by the Department of Cults and
unofŽ cially by the secret police. But the three documents share the same spirit both

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1475
in what they explicitly say and in what they choose to leave out. They all provide for
freedom of conscience for citizens and a right for churches to administer themselves.
As before 1989, the Church is denied control in schools, and all churches must secure
state approval before being allowed to function. More importantly, the Orthodox
Church’s pre-communist privileged position was not restored, an option showing that
post-1989 leaders were prepared to use the Church whenever they wished, but were
less enthusiastic about granting it a privileged status.
For this reluctance the 1991 constitution came under heavy criticism. During
ensuing parliamentary debates Orthodox sympathisers made several attempts to gain
more leverage for their Church in such key institutions as the army and schools, and
more recognition for what they saw as the Church’s unique position as the spiritual
and moral mentor of Romanians. Critics were disappointed that the democratic 1923
constitution, which proclaimed vaguely that Orthodoxy was the ‘prevailing Roma-
nian’ religion in relation to other religions, was not used as a blueprint for the new
2
5
basic law. Aware that its calls fell on deaf ears, and encouraged by its increased hold
over the Romanian population and politicians alike, in 1994 the Church declared itself
the ‘National Church’, a move strongly criticised by the Roman and Greek Catholic
Churches. Trying to allay fears that the Orthodox Church’s self-granted new status
placed other denominations on a lesser footing, Professor Dumitru Popescu of
Bucharest University Orthodox Theology faculty insisted that other registered Chris-
tian churches would still enjoy equal rights. In September 1999 the Church moved
one step closer to being ofŽ cially recognised as the ‘national church’ when the
Christian-Democrat Premier Radu Vasile amended the new draft law on religious
denominations in favour of the Orthodox Church. Not before the cabinet turned down
the proposal, Patriarch Teoctist went on ‘strike’, and relations between the NPPCD
and the Church cooled considerably. The bill is yet to be discussed by parliament.
Romanians only recently learned that during the early 1990s constitutional debates
the Church called on the state authorities to recognise all Synod members as de jure
senators. Bold as it seemed, the idea was not completely new to Romania, but part
and parcel of all pre-communist constitutions. (The 1923 constitution granted the
same right to Greek Catholic leaders as well.) As local mass media revealed, in
mid-July 1990 the Orthodox patriarch and metropolitans met then President Ion
Iliescu to discuss what was laconically described at the time as ‘the Church’s
2
6
representation in parliament’. When Iliescu rejected the proposal, the patriarchate
presented the Synod with a report on amendments ‘improving’ the draft constitution.
The changes related to Article 58.1, which the Church wanted to read: ‘The Orthodox
patriarch, metropolitans and archbishops or their representatives, together with the
27
leaders of the other Churches recognised in Romania, are senators de jure’. The
drafters of the 1991 constitution disregarded the suggestions, but the Church did not
consider this the end of the story, as we will see shortly.
The new constitutional arrangements are complemented by several older legislative
acts pertaining to religious affairs. Parliament has yet to pass a new law on
religious denominations, thus Decree no. 177/1948 on the general regime of religious
cults and the August 1948 Law on Cults remain effective but hardly appropriate
for the new times, since they both deŽ ne the Church’s relations with a repressive
state. Eager to improve its relationship with the Church, the Romanian

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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
post-communist state did not avail itself of some of its legislative prerogatives, such
as the rights to appoint the patriarch and to control property, its pastoral letters and
public statements, and its relations with Churches abroad. But while allowing the
Church’s emancipation from state appointments and reviews, the state continues to
conŽ rm nominations to senior positions in the hierarchy, and state representatives still
attend the Synod sessions and the National Church Congress meetings. The traditional
subordination of the Church to the state underwent little change, as Church–state
relations continue to be supervised by the State Secretariat for Religious Affairs, heir
to a governmental agency which, in one way or another, has survived since 1872. The
Secretariat remains the manager of the budget, and state contributions are still the
2
8
main source for the wages of priests and theology teaching staff. Its historical
dependence on state funds has made the priesthood a salaried bureaucracy subservient
to the state and political interests. It should be noted that the post-communist state’s
supervision of Romanian religious affairs has not always been detrimental to the
Church, however, since the Secretariat apparently adopted some obstructionist tactics
favouring the Orthodox Church over other religious groups.29
The Church in post-communist public affairs
Encouraged by the post-communist religious revival, the Church proved to be a
constant public voice and a strong advocate for religious solutions to various civil
issues. Some of the issues addressed by the Orthodox Church during the past decade
include parliamentary representation for the Orthodox hierarchy, introduction of
compulsory religion courses at all pre-university educational levels, upholding the ban
on homosexual behaviour, an anti-abortion campaign, and the restitution of the
property seized by the communist state from Greek Catholics and transferred to the
Orthodox Church. We will now turn to each of these issues.
Political representation for the Orthodox Church
In mid-1998, years after the Church’s failed intervention with President Iliescu to
grant Synod members senatorial seats, Archbishop Anania made two public requests.
The Ž rst asked the Synod to endorse the political involvement of priests as electoral
advisers to the public. DissatisŽ ed with the quality of the country’s politicians, whom
he called ‘the unwanted who rule us’, Anania proposed that the Church select
candidates for parliamentary mandates, and that priests urge believers during sermons
to vote for people whom the Church trusted. Though formulated by one of the most
conservative Orthodox leaders, the proposal was endorsed by progressive Ž gures such
as Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu, who agreed that ‘the Church cannot support a
speciŽ c party, since this move would alienate the other parties’ followers, but priests
may have political preferences and behave accordingly’. Corneanu further explained
that the Church ‘can neither be apolitical, as some fear, nor involved in political
partisanship, as some wish’, since it ‘must have a word to say in what goes on in the
30
world, society and daily life’. Many Romanians, however, suggested that the Church
should stick to religious affairs.
Much more controversial was Anania’s second proposal, which reiterated the

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1477
Church’s earlier request for the state authorities to recognise all Synod members as
senators. Orthodox clergy overwhelmingly endorsed the Church’s political involve-
ment as natural since, as one clergyman put it, ‘the Church was actually never
31
separated from the state. Where the ruler was, there the prelate was too’. Church
leaders did not conceal their disappointment when political leaders showed reluctance
to embrace the proposal, especially since Orthodox leaders believed that their tacit
support had brought the new rulers to power. Bishop Ioachim of Husi insisted that a
Church legislative presence was nothing short of a moral obligation for the state
3
2
authorities. Metropolitan Daniel Ciobotea of Moldova deplored the fact that the
33
Church ‘has been supported less by the current regime than by the Iliescu regime’.
Critics pointed out that, if adopted, such a proposal could bring considerable damage
to the fragile Romanian democracy. Father Ioan Dura maintained that these de jure
senators would be in fact lifetime senators, since Orthodox priests are not required to
retire. The 27-member Synod would be a formidable parliamentary faction with
unmatched political in uence given by the Church’s moral standing and unparalleled
village and town penetration, and the growing loss of popularity suffered by political
parties and politicians as a result of their perceived inability to solve the country’s
transition problems. Even commentators usually uncritical of the Church expressed
doubts about the proposal. Dan Ciachir wrote that ‘the Church should have a voice
in parliament, but the proposed solution seems non-viable’.34
After Anania Ž rst voiced the proposal, in 1999 a group of Orthodox members of
parliament have prepared a draft law allowing for Orthodox leaders to become
senators. But with less than a year to go until general elections, the draft law was not
discussed by the parliament. Corneliu Vadim Tudor, the GRP leader, and Virgil
Magureanu, the controversial ex-director of the Romanian Intelligence Service,
endorsed the proposal, but more credible Romanian politicians either kept silent on
the subject or refused to support it. The party representing the Transylvanian
Hungarian community had strong reservations.
The Romanian Orthodox Church and education
The resumption of pre-university religious education after decades of ofŽ cially
backed atheistic propaganda was one of the earliest post-communist demands of the
Orthodox Church. At the beginning of 1990 both the new Minister of Religious
Affairs, Nicolae Stoicescu, and the Synod stated their decision to encourage the
introduction of religious education at all pre-university levels. The same demand was
formulated by the Group for Re ection on Church Renewal, set up earlier in an effort
to craft a new image for the Church and do away with the conservatism of a hierarchy
tainted by collaboration with the communists. An optional religion class, for which
pupils were not to be graded, was to be included in the curricula of elementary and
high schools. The basics to be taught in class were to be selected by a Synod-
appointed mixed commission of clergymen and lay people. Defending the proposal,
Stoicescu argued that religious education would contribute to the moral recovery of
the nation, and Metropolitan Ciobotea explained that religious education was needed
because ‘atheistic humanism cannot be replaced by a nihilist, indifferent and confused
humanism’. He further claimed that ‘teaching religion in schools should be seen as

1
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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
a chance for broadening one’s horizons and improving one’s knowledge, not as
35
ideological indoctrination’. But the request was met with mixed feelings outside
Orthodox circles. Some intellectuals opposed the idea of compulsory religious
education altogether, while others criticised the poor quality of religious instruction
and of the related literature.36
Compared with what it set out to accomplish, the Church met with limited success
in its attempt to institutionalise pre-university religious education. To its chagrin, the
July 1995 Law on Education made religion classes optional at the high school level,
and compulsory only in elementary schools. But the Church was able to beneŽ t from
the legislators’ omission to make room for a non-religious or philosophical alterna-
tive: Ž nancial constraints and lack of specialised teachers have meant that elementary
schools offer religion classes mostly taught by Orthodox priests. While this shortcom-
ing ran counter to non-Orthodox parents’ right to provide their children with
education consonant with their beliefs, it allowed the Church to make its doctrine,
history and worldview known to a larger audience. The high school level faces the
same practical constraints, but high-school students can refuse to take the weekly
religion class, even if this means no religious instruction at all. This has been their
preferred choice since September 1997, when religion classes were Ž rst offered.
While the study of Orthodoxy failed to spark interest among young members of the
country’s dominant religious community, Protestant and Catholic religion classes
have been popular with ethnic Hungarian and German students. Ethnic schools,
however, remain subject to restrictions, and confessional schools cannot be set up for
the time being. Disappointed that religion was optional in high school, the Church
persuaded some deputies to support an extension of the compulsory character of
religious study. Parliament has yet to vote on the new law. The Church also
convinced the Ministry of Education to allow pupils and teachers, for the Ž rst time
since 1947, to attend liturgy on the Ž rst day of the 1998/99 school year.
Church involvement in education did not stop there. Calls for a revision of
textbooks in consonance with Christian values have been heard at times. In 1990 the
Group for Re ection on Church Renewal asked for a ‘de-Marxisation’ of textbooks
so that they would adequately re ect the contribution of Orthodoxy to Romanian
3
7
culture. Three years later Metropolitan Plamadeala called on parliament to adopt
educational programmes and literature based on fundamental Christian values and
ideals. His position was echoed in 1998 by Ioan Moisin, a NPPCD senator and Greek
Catholic priest, who asked the Ministry of Education to set up a commission of
‘
knowledgeable’ Orthodox and Catholics to revise philosophy and biology textbooks
to avoid contradictions with religious creationism. The senator complained that pupils
were told by their religion teacher that humans were God’s creation and by
philosophy and biology teachers of Darwinist persuasion that humans came from
apes. The proposal also envisioned the formation of a Council of Public Morality,
directly subordinated to the presidency and formed by Church and teachers’ represen-
38
tatives, which would supervise public education. Neither parliament nor the Minis-
try of Education seriously considered the proposals.
A spring 1998 incident highlighted the deep divide between Orthodox believers and
more secularised societal groups, and raised questions about the limits of religious
activity in Romanian universities. The dispute ensued after four philosophy and law

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1479
students asked the Bucharest University senate to ban religious activity from the
campus and reject a proposal of the Association of Christian Orthodox Students
39
(
ACOS) to build a new church in the grounds of the Law Faculty. The university
senate initially passed the required resolution but then rescinded its decision in
response to a threat that the names of those voting against building the new church
would be revealed. For a week the university was covered with posters supporting
both sides of the issue. ACOS protesters proclaimed that communist-era religious
persecution had returned but the students opposed to the project saw the construction
of a place of worship on the campus as a threat to a pluralist and tolerant academic
ethos. The latter group also opposed a 1997 decision of the Law Students’ League to
introduce Orthodox icons in classrooms as infringing the rights of non-Orthodox
40
students. During a roundtable organised by the weekly 22, Professor Mircea Flonta
revealed that a December 1995 proposal envisaged the inclusion in the academic
charter of a provision saying that Bucharest University was based on the principles
of Christian ethics. When the proposal met a cold response because it could hamper
the activity of non-Christian professors, ACOS asked for the recognition of an
Orthodox patron saint for the University. The move, according to Flonta, revealed that
ACOS viewed the leading Romanian university as a semi-confessional institution.
Another round table participant, former anti-communist dissident Gabriel Andreescu,
opined that ‘by introducing Orthodox and Catholic symbols in university or school,
one forces students to study in a religiously-deŽ ned atmosphere, a thing which runs
counter to their religious freedom’. Construction of the church was halted but it is
unclear whether this was due to a lack of necessary funds or a realisation on the part
of the university senate that Romanian higher education should remain secular.
The body and society: the Romanian Orthodox Church on homosexuality and
abortion
When Romania formally applied for membership of the European structures in the
early 1990s, Article 200 of its Criminal Code, punishing sexual relationships among
persons of the same sex with prison terms of up to Ž ve years, came under heavy
criticism. Under international pressure, the government initiated procedures to modify
the code in accordance with European standards but it was only after years of bitter
arguments that changes partially liberalising homosexual activities came into effect by
Law no. 140/1996. Under the new version of Article 200 homosexual activities were
punishable with prison terms if they were carried out in public or if they caused
public scandal. The article punished those ‘inciting or encouraging a person to the
practice of sexual relations between persons of the same sex’, and ‘propaganda or
association or any other act of proselytism committed in the same scope’. While
apparently more lenient than its predecessor, the new formulation did not specify
what exactly constituted a public scandal and where the Ž ne line between private and
public behaviour should fall. Some politicians believed that any homosexual act was
potentially public because ‘what is damaging and immoral on the streets cannot be
4
1
permissible and moral in intimacy’, while others justify their hesitation fully to
decriminalise homosexuality by claiming that Romanians regard homosexual relations
as abnormal. Indeed, a 1993 opinion poll showed that four out of Ž ve Romanians

1
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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
believed homosexual acts were never justiŽ ed, and the complete eradication of
homosexuality served a legitimate national interest.
A joint Human Rights Watch and International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights
Commission report published in late 1998 singled out the Orthodox Church as one of
the most formidable opponents to decriminalising homosexuality. True, the over-
whelming majority of Romanian denominations came out in favour of the ban, but the
Orthodox Church was far more vocal than any other. Patriarch Teoctist repeatedly
came out against ‘the acceptance of the degradingly abnormal and unnatural lifestyle
as normal and legal’. A number of Christian organisations helped sustain within the
Church’s higher echelons the momentum for an anti-homosexuality crusade. After
denouncing homosexuality as ‘propaganda for human degenerates’, the outspoken
ACOS persuaded Teoctist to ask legislators to maintain the ban on homosexuality,
and mounted a tireless intimidation campaign against those members of parliament
willing to decriminalise such behaviour, accusing them of atheism and immorality. In
its Ž ght the Church used state television to criticise the proposed changes to Article
2
00 vehemently. In a number of religious programmes Orthodox theologians, priests
and monks extolled the virtue of the traditional position vis- a` -vis sexual relations and
rejected any ‘Westernisation’ of Romanians’ mores. The Synod secretary, Teofan
Sinaitul, attacked liberalisation as fostering confusion between ‘normal and abnormal,
good and evil’, parish priest Sandu Mehedinti deplored it as ‘the devil’s work’
signaling the country’s renunciation of its century-old Christian ethics, and Bishop
Andrei Andreicut of Alba Iulia accused politicians of ‘encouraging societal aberra-
4
2
tions’. The most outspoken was Archbishop Anania, who remarked that ‘Europe
asks us to accept sex, homosexuality, vices, drugs, abortions and genetic engineering,
including cloning’, and attacked the ‘impoverished Europe … built exclusively on
politics and economics, lacking any trace of spirituality, culture or religion’ Romania
4
3
was to enter.
In its Ž ght against homosexuality the Church managed to win several political
formations. The extremist Party of Romanian National Unity and the GRP, which
looked upon Orthodoxy and moral cleanliness as quintessential for Romanianism,
proclaimed that Article 200 was too lenient and toleration of homosexuality was
damaging to the very national pride. The NPPCD felt compelled to justify its
Christian Democratic commitment by adopting a strictly traditional view on the
subject. Its leader, Corneliu Coposu, categorically opposed ‘sexual aberrations’,
arguing that the party’s Christian moral foundation led it ‘to combat every deviation
from the law of nature and from the moral principles of a future balanced society’.
He further claimed it to be imperative for ‘liberty to be blocked by the liberty of
others when the collective sentiment of a group or a tradition is injured by some
44
initiative pretending to be “progressive” and modern’. NPPCD deputy Emil Popescu
suggested that ‘incest was preferable to homosexuality since at least the former
preserved the chance of procreation’.45
As a result of this campaign homosexuality remains illegal in Romania. The state’s
reluctance to decriminalise homosexuality contributes to a climate of intolerance.
Analysts even argued that the refusal to grant equal space for expression and visibility
to all citizens speaks of the country’s incomplete democratisation. We can only guess
the reasons for the Church’s opposition to decriminalising homosexuality. As some

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1481
commentators suggested, the Church might have adopted an extreme position vis- a` -
vis homosexuality because public sentiment favouring the liberalisation of abortion
after more than two decades of communist pro-natal policies had rendered abortion
a highly sensitive issue.
Abortion was prohibited in 1966 by the unpopular Decree no. 770 in order to
achieve demographic targets. The decree was abrogated by the post-communist
leaders days after the December 1989 uprising, and the sudden liberalisation gave
Romania the highest abortion rate in Europe, with over 1.2 million conducted yearly
4
6
in a population of 23 million. In a January 1994 open letter Orthodox leaders urged
4
7
the state to take legal action to curb the explosive increase in abortions. The request
was reiterated in early 1997 by the Greek Catholic priest and senator Ioan Moisin, but
his own party, the ruling NPPCD, refused to support the motion for fear of alienating
Romanian women, most of whom strongly oppose any restrictions on birth control.
Given this sensitivity, the Orthodox Church has also avoided formulating an ofŽ cial
position toward abortion and contraception. UnofŽ cial as it is, the Church’s position
can be gauged from a number of statements in which various clergymen have
condemned both practices, and from a pamphlet distributed by the Orthodox leader-
48
ship to Orthodox priests in 1997. Prepared by Father Ilie Moldovan, a moral
theology professor at Sibiu Faculty of Theology and the Orthodox Church’s leading
authority on the subject, the pamphlet virulently condemns abortion. For Moldovan,
the main goal of both marriage and sexual intercourse is procreation; a marriage
whose main goal is eluded is ‘nothing but a legal form of prostitution’, and all family
planning methods dissociating sexuality from procreation are to be severely con-
demned. The future child is a person immediately after the egg and the sperm come
together, so any attempt to destroy the impregnated egg imperils ‘a total human, body
and soul’, and runs counter to the divine commandment not to kill. Moldovan also
contends that abortion remains unjustiŽ ed and morally sinful even when the preg-
nancy endangers the mother’s life or health. He goes as far as to reject the Ogino
calendar-based planning, the only contraception method accepted by the Roman
Catholic Church, and that Church’s argument that ‘for just reasons, spouses may wish
to space the births of their children’ and that ‘the use of infertile periods is in
49
conformity with the objective criteria of morality’. Moldovan’s stance relies as
much on religious as on ethno-national considerations. For him, abortion is a threat
to the very survival of the Romanian nation, amounting to genocide. The author
advises his fellow Orthodox priests to refuse to give communion to a woman
undergoing such an operation for seven years, and if the woman dies as a result of
abortion to refuse to bury her.
Not all the Orthodox leaders agree with such radical views. Father Justin Marchis,
who favours the Ogino contraceptive method, attacked the pamphlet on theological
grounds and deplored the widespread distribution that this text alone received. Other
priests have maintained that the Orthodox Church’s traditional non-interference in
spouses’ intimate relations means that the calendar is tacitly accepted as a contracep-
5
0
tive method, with all other methods being strongly rejected. Metropolitan Corneanu
is among the few leaders who have made clear their opposition to any criminalisation
of homosexuality and abortion, and publicly stated that women, not some institution,
5
1
have the right to decide whether or not to end the pregnancy.

1
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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
Restitution of property to the Greek Catholic Church
Since 1990, when the Greek Catholic Church was recognised, a sour point for the
Orthodox Church has been the Greek Catholics’ insistence on restitution of their
property lost under communism. The Greek Catholic Church was constituted in 1700
in Transylvania when the Habsburg regime, through the skillful mediation of the
Jesuits, persuaded the local Orthodox clergy that their acceptance of Catholic dogma
and the authority of the Pope would earn them equal status with the Catholic and
5
2
Protestant clergy. Within a century of this church’s inception Transylvanian Roma-
nians ‘were transformed from a mute society of serfs and shepherds subservient to the
will of Western European regional masters into a vocal class expressing “national”
5
3
aspirations’. Greek Catholics not only played a major part in the national emanci-
pation of Transylvanian Romanians but, as prominent politicians, they continued to
play an important role in inter-war Greater Romania.
The communists disbanded the Greek Catholic Church in late 1948, after the
Vatican was denounced by the Orthodox Patriarch Justinian as ‘the centre of the
oldest imperialist tradition’,54 and the communists announced that they would no
longer abide by the Concordat. The Greek Catholic Church was forced to merge with
the Orthodox Church, and its priests were promised state-sponsored salaries only if
they declared themselves Orthodox. Greek Catholic cathedrals and churches were
turned over to the Orthodox Church, and in November 1948 some 600 Greek Catholic
priests, including all their six bishops, went to prison. Faced with the alternative of
arrest, other clergy and faithful joined the Orthodox Church. The latter supported the
merger and saw the Greek Catholics’ return to the Church from which their ancestors
were separated in 1700 as long overdue reparation of a historical injustice. Until 1989
many Orthodox clergy and theologians sincerely believed that the 1948 suppression
of the Greek Catholic Church had put an end to Greek Catholicism in Romania, but
the unrecognised Church survived clandestinely until 1990, when it resurfaced. Its
current members amount to only a fraction of its pre-communist membership, and 1%
55
of the Romanian population. Though most followers are old, they are vocal
defenders of their Church’s rights.
Chief among these rights is the return of Greek Catholic property turned over to the
Orthodox Church by the communists, including 1800 churches, cemeteries and
chapels.5 In the early 1990s Greek Catholics recovered part of this property. In the
southwestern region of Banat, several churches were returned by the Orthodox
Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu, and in several Transylvanian counties local Orthodox
leaders voluntarily gave up smaller churches.57 These agreements, however, were too
few to solve the dispute adequately. Most Orthodox and Greek Catholic priests
refused to enter into direct negotiations but instead waited for a comprehensive
solution to be proposed by their respective hierarchies. As always in Romanian
history, decision making was expected to take place at the centre. Instead of
examining each case on an individual basis, the two hierarchies have striven for a
comprehensive solution.
6
Negotiations were Ž rst stalled by the Greek Catholics’ demand for the restitutio in
integrum, a return of all their former churches and property. Greek Catholics stressed
that Romania could become a true e´ tat de droit only when such core democratic

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1483
principles as property inviolability were strictly observed. If the Romanian authorities
genuinely respected private property, then they should return the Greek Catholic
churches or pay compensation. The Orthodox Church argued that, demographically
and historically, integral restitution was unjustiŽ ed. Demographically, Greek Catholic
membership had dwindled so much that many Greek Catholic village communities
had entirely disappeared. Church transfer in such villages would mean that Orthodox
believers no longer had a place to worship, while the village church stood empty.
Historically, the Orthodox Church said, many Greek Catholic churches were in fact
pre-1700 Orthodox churches. If restitution was to be carried out, then the Orthodox
Church felt entitled to ask for its property turned over to the Greek Catholics by the
Habsburg regime. From such uncompromising positions the two Churches managed
to strike a deal in 1993, agreeing that they should start from today’s realities in their
5
8
bilateral ties and discussions on church restitution. The declaration seemingly
implied that the Greek Catholics would scale down their demands and look for
alternative solutions to integral restitution, while the Orthodox would give up
historical arguments and recognise the other Church’s rights and existence. But
negotiations were again thwarted by the Orthodox leaders’ unwillingness to pursue
the matter further and the Greek Catholics’ frustration with such an attitude. In the
end, Patriarch Teoctist asked for the con ict to be solved by the country’s authorities
rather than by church leaders.
In 1997 senator Matei Boila, a Greek Catholic priest and NPPCD member,
proposed a law returning Greek Catholic churches in localities where there were at
least two formerly Greek Catholic churches and an active Greek Catholic community.
This proposal of partial church restitution, which also suggested the joint, alternate
use of some churches, was more than reasonable. It responded to earlier Orthodox
demands not to deprive the Orthodox of their churches, and at the same time allowed
Greek Catholics to have their own church in the localities where they were living. But
the draft was met with hostility by the Orthodox Church: the patriarch categorically
rejected it and the Transylvanian prelates threatened civil war if the Boila bill were
passed.59 The Affairs Minister of Religions, Gheorghe Anghelescu, took the side of
the Orthodox and proposed that the state Ž nance the building of a few new churches
for Greek Catholics, while the Orthodox keep the old ones. Unfazed by criticism, in
June 1997 the Senate approved the Boila law.
The decision prompted bitter reactions from Orthodox clergy and politicians alike.
Patriarch Teoctist voiced ‘consternation’ at the vote, which maintained ‘a climate of
religious hatred’ with ‘utterly unpredictable consequences for Transylvanian peace’.
Forgetting his previous call for a state solution to the dispute, Teoctist labelled the
decision ‘an inadmissible interference in the national church’s problems, one that-
fully ignores the agreements between the Vatican and the Orthodox Church and the
many proposals for dialogue and reconciliation made by the Synod for settling the
6
0
dispute’. Metropolitan Ciobotea deplored restitution carried out ‘by constraint,
rather than by goodwill agreement’, and blamed Greek Catholics for refusing
negotiation. Metropolitan Plamadeala considered the law to be ‘an attempt against the
life of the Orthodox Church and of our nation’. This view was echoed by Deputy
Petre Turlea, for whom state interference in religious affairs was ‘undemocratic’, with
‘
immediate negative consequences for the Romanian national unitary state’. For him,

1
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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
the bill’s initiators ‘were playing into the hands of those interested in Romania’s
61
perishing as a unitary state’.
Orthodox opposition to the Boila law meant that no list of churches designated for
transfer could be drafted. In most localities where the law could be enforced, that is,
in those villages and towns with active Greek Catholic communities and at least two
churches, Orthodox priests refused to vacate any church. The case of the formerly
Greek Catholic Cathedral of the TransŽ guration in Cluj, the major Transylvanian city,
speaks for the great divide between the two Churches. Following a court decision on
1
3 March 1998 the Orthodox Church had to return the cathedral to the Greek
Catholics, who since 1990 had prayed in the nearby Union Square. But after heated
discussions with Orthodox clergy and devotees, the court representative refused on
technical grounds to enforce the court order. Exasperated by a process with no end
in sight and disappointed with the authorities’ refusal to return what they considered
to be rightfully theirs, Greek Catholic believers entered the church and proceeded to
the altar to drive the Orthodox clergy out by force. Inside the church were Orthodox
parishioners attending a liturgy the parish priest had deliberately scheduled in the
hope of delaying the transfer. It did not take long for the Orthodox to call the Greek
Catholics ‘traitors’ and for the latter to respond by labelling the Orthodox ‘commu-
nists’. Young seminarians of both sides fought pitched battles inside the church, in the
altar and, Ž nally, on top of the holy table.62
The violence took the Romanian press and authorities alike by surprise, and they
unanimously condemned the lack of true dialogue between the Churches and called
for an end to the con ict. The local authorities appealed to believers on both sides to
take ‘the path of dialogue and compromise’ in order to resolve the litigation, and ‘not
to get involved in inter-confessional con icts’. Earlier the Cluj city council tried to
solve the rift by leasing land for the building of a new Orthodox church in the city’s
central area. They also asked the two Churches to jointly use the TransŽ guration
cathedral until the new building was Ž nished but the Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Alba Iulia categorically refused to allow the celebration of Orthodox divine service
in the cathedral.
The two Churches acknowledged no wrongdoing. Greek Catholic leaders were
conspicuously silent on the subject, and the Orthodox patriarch suggested that the
confrontation, which ‘damaged the image of the two Churches, the country, the state
6
3
and church authority’, proved once again that it was the other Church that refused
dialogue. After the incident the Orthodox parish priest decided to relinquish the
building and organise divine services at the nearby Orthodox cathedral. One week
after the incident, 2500 Orthodox clergy, students and devotees from all Transylva-
nian counties, led by Archbishop Anania and patriarchal representatives, held a silent
demonstration in Cluj. Romanian  ags in hand, the participants prayed for the souls
of ‘the enemies of the Romanian nation’, an allusion to the Greek Catholics, and
Anania promised to continue the Ž ght for ‘the spiritual rebirth of the Romanian
nation, disunited in Transylvania three hundred years ago by the establishment of the
6
4
Greek Catholic Church’.
The open con ict in Cluj led to at least one signiŽ cant change of attitude in the
Orthodox Church. While before the incident the state authorities were called on to
solve the dispute surrounding church restitution, once the state put forward proposals

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1485
with which the Orthodox disagreed, they were eager to take the matter into their own
hands and pleaded with the state not to interfere in a ‘strictly religious matter’. A
lesser known church Ž gure clearly articulated the Orthodox position on state interven-
tion in the con ict. Bishop Andreicut called for church restitution to be solved by a
joint commission of the two denominations, with the consultation of the faithful.
Andreicut complained that in Cluj, instead of a joint commission, there was only ‘a
6
5
court dictate motivated by political and confessional interests’. Formal meetings
between Orthodox and Greek Catholic bishops resumed in late 1998 and early 1999,
allowing some progress to be made. In October 1998 in Blaj Orthodox, Greek
Catholic and Roman Catholic bishops sought to establish a climate of trust between
the two Churches so that a settlement agreeable to both sides could be drafted. This
was followed in January 1999 by a second meeting of Orthodox and Catholic clerics.
Participants drafted an agreement to share churches in towns where more than one
6
6
proper building existed. The Orthodox refusal to return conŽ scated Greek Catholic
churches was a major impediment to a papal visit, but once the visit was accom-
plished in early May 1999 there were signs that it had inspired concessions on both
sides. There are still some 1700 churches to be returned to the Greek Catholic Church.
It would be simplistic to consider the con ict surrounding church restitution and its
solution a merely technical, judicial, rather than a fully- edged political and economic
problem. Most political leaders share anti-Greek Catholic feelings, while those
sympathetic to the Greek Catholic viewpoint could hardly advance solutions per-
ceived as damaging Orthodox interests. The post-1996 government led by Christian
Democrats has ruled by ordinances and decrees. For example, an August 1998
governmental ordinance ordered the restitution of buildings belonging to ethnic
minorities, such as the Bacau Jewish schools and the Cluj Presbyterian Theological
Institute.6 However, did not the Christian Democratic government adopt similar
measures with regard to the dispute over church restitution.
7
Concluding remarks
The Orthodox Church’s place in the new Romanian political order remains ill deŽ ned
and subject to much controversy. This is because many Orthodox leaders view
democratisation as a threat to their Byzantine view of church-state relations and the
state is unwilling to relinquish its traditional centralist coordination of every single
aspect of Romanian life, including the religious one. These have not been easy years
for the Church, as any narrative of events suggests. Parties with strikingly different
philosophies interfered constantly in its life through the passage of laws in which the
church had little input. Many Orthodox core demands (such as parliamentary
representation for the entire church hierarchy, formal recognition as the ‘national
church’, compulsory religious education at all pre-university levels, and a ban on
abortion) have been either disregarded or only partially fulŽ lled. But by sheer
numbers alone the Orthodox Church has managed to maintain a strong political voice
that cannot be ignored by the country’s political elite.
Is it possible that the future will bring a separation between Church and state in
Romania? As early as 1993 the in uential Metropolitan Ciobotea came out in favour

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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
of full separation between Church and state and complete depoliticisation of the
68
Church. Not all Orthodox ofŽ cials felt the same way, and, following the March 1998
controversy over the Cluj cathedral, Ciobotea himself changed his mind and urged the
state to support the Orthodox Church more vigorously. This is no small thing since,
as Metropolitan of Moldova, Ciobotea is most likely to be the next Romanian
Orthodox patriarch. Yet state legislation and increased public Ž nancial support must
be accompanied by proposals for the Church to change inwardly and renew itself.
This will be its challenge for the new millennium.
University of Toronto
St Francis Xavier University
1
According to a controversia l January 1992 census reported by Radio Romania, 13 August
1
993.2
Figures computed from Mircea Pacurariu, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Romane, vol. 3
(
Bucharest, 1981), pp. 516–526.
3
George Ursul, ‘From Political Freedom to Religious Independence: The Romanian Orthodox
Church, 1877–1925’, in Stephen Fischer-Galati, Radu Florescu & George Ursul (eds), Romania
between East and West (Boulder, 1982), pp. 217–244; and Pacurariu, pp. 113–128.
4
Alexander Webster, The Price of Prophecy: Orthodox Churches on Peace, Freedom, and
Security, 2nd edition (Washington, 1995); Ronald Roberson, ‘The Church in Romania’, in New
Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 19, Supplement 1989–1995 (Washington, 1996), pp. 331–337; and
Catherine Durandin, Histoire des roumains (Paris, 1995).
5
Marina, head of the Orthodox Church from 1948 to 1977, was succeeded by Justin Moisescu
(
1977–1986). Teoctist Arapasu became patriarch in 1986.
6
Trevor Beeson, Discretion and Valor: Religious Conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe, 2nd
edition (Philadelphia, 1982), p. 368.
7
R. Tobias, Communist-Christian Encounter in East Europe (Indianapolis , 1956), p. 349 f.
8
Webster, p. 111.
9
Romania libera, 10 March 1997.
ROMPRESS, 4 January 1990.
ROMPRESS, 12 January 1990. In an interview with the weekly 22, Metropolitan Plamadeala
1
1
0
1
deŽ antly explained that ‘You could not be a martyr but once, which was useless [since] the believers
needed the life-giving water of God’s word’.
1
1
1
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
Bartolomeu Ananiu, quoted by ROMPRESS, 10 April 1990.
Romania libera, 10 March 1997.
Quoted by Webster, p. 114.
Webster, p. 27.
This was the second wave of canonisations carried out by the Orthodox Church. In October
1
955 the Church canonised nine Romanian saints, Ž ve of whom distinguished themselves in the Ž ght
against Uniatism in 18th-century Transylvania. Cf. Pacurariu, pp. 478–479.
1
7
The proposal for a ‘National Salvation’ cathedral was Ž rst advanced in 1990, and then again
after the 1996 political change. When some observers accused the Orthodox Church of entertaining
grandiose projects in an era of acute poverty, the Church explained that it was merely reiterating King
Ferdinand’s inter-war suggestion of erecting a patriarchal cathedral to commemorate Greater Roma-
nia. 1
8
Bartolomeu Anania, ‘Totul este sa incepem constructia’, Dilema, 24–30 October 1997.
In August 1996 Emil Constantinescu attended the anniversary of the Simbata de Sus
1
9
monastery and the Saint Paraschiva wake in Curtea de Arges, while Petre Roman and Gheorghe
Funar visited the Nicula monastery in Cluj. One month later, when Roman entered a church in Buzau,
the parish priest invited him into the altar, adding; ‘Let’s give Caesar what is Caesar’s’. Adrian
Paunescu helped Ž nancially an Orthodox church in Tirgu Mures and the Rimet monastery. Constantin
Mudava’s slogan mentioned here was bitterly criticised by the Church. See the Adevarul and
Evenimentul Zilei August–November 1996 collections for campaign news.
2
2
0
1
Radio Romania, 10 October 1996. The DC, an umbrella organisation, won the 1996 elections.
Evenimentul Zilei, 15 October 1998. Orthodox churches have an enclosure containing the holy
table where only clergy and the King have been traditionally allowed to enter.

THE ROMANIAN CHURCH AND DEMOCRATISATION
1487
2
2
2
2
3
4
ROMPRESS, 11 January and 4 May 1990.
The NSF, widely regarded as the heir of the RCP, became the PSD in 1993.
The 1991 constitution refers to religious denominations as ‘cults’, a term frequently used in
Romanian and other East European languages without the negative connotations it has acquired in
English. Contrary to the claims of some commentators, the term was not introduced by the communist
authorities but was inherited from pre-communist times.
25
This view deliberately overlooks the privileged position the Greek Catholic Church was
granted by Article 22 of the 1923 constitution: ‘The Orthodox and the Greek Catholic Churches are
Romanian churches. The Romanian Orthodox Church, being the religion [sic] of a majority of
Romanians, is the dominant church in the Romanian State; and the Greek Catholic Church has
priority over other denominations’.
2
2
2
6
7
8
BOR, 1990, 7–10, p. 26.
BOR, 1991, 10–12, p. 235.
Under the 1948 decree only the clergy of the 15 religions recognised by the Romanian
government were eligible to receive state Ž nancial support. After 1990 the Romanian state registered
85 other faiths, organisation s and foundations as religious associations, thereby entitling then to
3
juridical status and to exemptions from income and customs taxes. Religious associations may not
build churches and houses of worship or perform rites of baptism, marriage or burial. SEIA
Newsletter, 40, 2 March 1999, p. 7.
2
3
3
9
0
1
Ibid.
Evenimentul Zilei, 12, 14 and 17 April 1998.
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, ‘The Ruler and the Patriarch: The Romanian Eastern Orthodox Church
in Transition’, East European Constitutional Review, 7, 2, 1998, p. 88.
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Evenimentul Zilei, 4 April 1999.
Mungiu-Pippidi, p. 88.
Evenimentul Zilei, 4 April 1999.
Radio Romania, 24 January and 27 June 1990.
Dilema, 15–21 September 1995; 22, 6–12 March 1996.
ROMPRESS, 15 August 1990.
Evenimentul Zilei, 18 March 1998.
The letter, addressed to the Minister of Education, Andrei Marga, was published in 22, 24–30
March 1998.
4
4
0
1
2
2, 23–29 April 1998.
PNTCD deputy Emil Popescu, quoted in Human Rights Watch and International Gay and
Lesbian Human Rights Commission, Public Scandals: Sexual Orientation and Criminal Law in
Romania (New York, Human Rights Watch and IGLHRC, 1998). This report is also available online
at http://www.igc.org/hrw/reports97/romania/
4
4
4
4
4
2
3
4
5
6
Evenimentul Zilei, 15 May 1998.
Evenimentul Zilei, 16 April 1998.
Quoted in Human Rights Watch, chapter 4.1.
Evenimentul Zilei, 15 May 1998.
John Luxmoore, ‘Eastern Europe 1995: a Review of Religious Life in Bulgaria, Romania,
Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland’, Religion, State and Society, 24, 4, 1996, p. 363.
4
4
7
8
National Catholic Reporter, 30, 13, 28 January 1994, p. 4.
Ilie Moldovan, Darul sŽnt al vietii si combaterea pacatelor impotriva acestuia—Aspecte ale
nasterii de prunci in lumina moralei crestine oriodoxe (Bucharest, 1997). The pamphlet is the only
viewpoint on abortion and contraceptio n to meet the tacit approval of the Orthodox Church, and to
be distributed to priests.
4
9
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (London, 1999), entries 2368 and 2370. Also Pope Paul
VI, Humanae Vitae 16.
5
5
5
0
1
2
Dilema, 5–11 March 1999.
2, 28 February 1998.
2
The Greek Catholic Church is known ofŽ cially as the Romanian Church United with Rome.
Some authors have referred to it as the Uniate Church, but this term is generally considered
derogatory. For historical details see Vlad Georgeseu, The Romanians: A History (Columbus, 1991).
5
5
5
3
4
5
Denis P. Hupchick, Con ict and Chaos in Eastern Europe (New York, 1995), p. 74.
Patriarch Justinian’s statement is quoted by Durandin, p. 375.
From a total of 1.4 million followers in the interwar period, the church has today only around
2
1
00 000 members (cf. Radio Romania, 18 June 1997). The ofŽ cial Greek Catholic membership in the
999 Annuario PontiŽ cio is reportedly around 1.3 million but local observers consider the Ž gure
unrealisticall y high.

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LAVINIA STAN & LUCIAN TURCESCU
5
6
‘
La future collaboration entre greco-catholique s et orthodoxes en Roumanie’, Courrier
Oecumenique du Moyen-Orient, 18, III, 1992, p. 24.
5
5
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
7
8
9
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
SEIA Newsletter, 40, 2 March 1999, p. 7.
Radio Romania, 18 June 1997.
See the patriarchate’s letter of 5 April 1994 addressed to the Romanian Senate.
Evenimentul, Zilei, 17 June 1997.
ROMPRESS, 18 June 1997.
Reuters, 13 March 1997.
ROMPRESS, 18 March 1997.
Adevarul, 22 and 23 March 1997.
Gabriel Andreescu, ‘Mesajul IPS Bartolomeu Anania’, 22, 2–8 April 1998.
Reuters, 4 February 1999.
SEIA Newsletter, 40, 2 March 1999, p. 7.
Dan Ionescu, “Romanian Orthodox Leaders Play the Nationalist Card”, Transition, 2, 7, 5
April 1996, p. 27.