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The study analyses decree no. 177 from the 4th of August 1948 for general regime of religious cults. The paper follows the changes added to religious life in Romania, specially the situation of Romanian Orthodox Church. This decree led path for communist regime to install a severe control over religious life, succeeding to subordinate it to politics. Communist legislation, mostly of soviet origin, determined many changes over the Orthodox Church, but also to other religious cults recognized in Romania. Communist authorities established as a purpose, by adopting a favorable legislative framework, the use of religious cults in means of propaganda and manipulation of the people. Apparently, communist laws appeared to assure large liberties to religious life. It has been suggested the idea that, for the first time in the history of Romania, religious cults will enjoy absolute freedom. In fact, in the content of the Decree there were stipulations that would consciously violate the freedom of manifestation of religious cults and the activity developed by them, aspects characteristic of totalitarian regimes. At a first glance, the 1948 law did not elucidate the true intentions of the regime, yet it gave the regime the first and most important lever of control over religious life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our study we consider the treatment of socio-economic, political and psychosocial topics. We want to show how four decades of dictatorship destroyed any idea of freedom, but also how once it was obtained, a part of the population looked at it with some fear. Thus, the post-communist regime had to be a reaction to the previous regime. In the case of the states of central and eastern europe, we understand that a need for democratization has been a demand produced by this reaction. It was wanted to build an opposite of the former communist regime, but the difficulty of building democracy was caused by the presence of the legacies of the old regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]