The Romanian Orthodox church today

Abstract

According to the Law for the General Di~ection of Cults, of I 948, the Romanian Orthodox Church has no special privileges within the Romanian State; all discrimination between citizens on religious grounds is forbidden,· and the free practice of all cults is guaranteed. But of all these denominations the Orthodox Church has by far the most adherents; the faithful number 13,000,000, it is claimed, which is 65 per cent of the total population of Romania. So the Orthodox might be justified by numbers alone in seeking a special position within the State even if there~were not also historical and cultural reasons for it. The State is communist and atheistic, and in theory, of course, the Church is completely separated from the State, yet in practice it has a position which amounts almost to establishment. In 1968 there were 8,600 parishes with 9,400 priests whose salaries are met in part by State funds, as are the salaries of the professors in the two theological institutes in Bucharest and Sibiu. State scholarships are awarded to studentS at these institutes, and State funds are also used to finance the administrative personnel of the Patriarchate. With so much help from the State, the Church is able to organise for its clergy a complete Social Insurance scheme comparable to that of the State, with pensions, medical assistance, rest-homes by the sea and holiday houses in the mountains. Such facts are proof that the Church is not merely tolerated within an officially atheistic, communist State, but that it has a positive role which is recognised and encouraged by the secular leaders. The reasons for this are several; firstly, the Romanian Orthodox Church, in common with many other churches of Eastern Europe, is an intensely national Church. Its clergy, by participating in any event of any importance to an emerging nation ever since the fourteenth century, made a great contribution both tothe moulding of a Romanian national consciousness, and to the forma~ tion of Romanian culture, especially through educational activities, and through the printing and dissemination of books. At a different level Orthodox theology and liturgy have entered the folk-lore of a nation with strong peasant traditions, and which still has large numbers of workers on the land. The large numbers of young people who attend the Easter Liturgies in spite of the intense political indoctrination to which they are subjected in the course of their studies; testify to a feeling of national solidarity which goes deeper than the dictates of the intellect. The televising of