The Romanian Orthodox Church and democratisation: twenty years later

Abstract

This article starts by presenting the legacy of the communist past, as relating to the use of nationalism by the Romanian Orthodox Church and its reluctance to confront its collaboration with the communist regime. Its second part discusses religious education in public schools, arguably the religious denominations' most important achievement after 1989, before, in the third part, examining the different models of church–state relations embraced by the Romanian Orthodox Church during the reigns of its two post-communist patriarchs, Patriarch Teoctist (Arǎpaşu) and Patriarch Daniel (Ciobotea). It argues that although marred by its communist past for almost the first decade and a half after 1989, the church, like the country itself, has transformed in the process of accession to the European Union. In particular, it argues that the search for a model of church–state relations has evolved in the view of the country's dominant church, from one of establishment to one of partnership.