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The union of the Romanian Principalities was a decisive moment in the history and evolution of the modern Romanian state, but its realization cannot be separated from the actions of the bishops and clergy, who were coopted in the electoral process from the very beginning. The activity of the clergy was not strictly limited to the bureaucratic management of the elections but revealed a set of political beliefs, actively supporting the idea of Romanians’ national unity. This paper aims to insist on the political partisanship of the clergy respectively, on the immediate consequences of their involvement in political life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The phenomenon of Christianity on the Internet is widely known and appreciated by most Christian faithful and priests for quite a long time, even though in the beginning it was met with distrust. This proves, once again, that there is no medium of communication totally incompatible with the "Good News" - the Gospels. Regarding the online presence of the Romanian Orthodox Church in general and of the Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina in particular, it became clearly evident that a web platform representing the Church, besides its spiritual and dogmatic rigours, had to align itself with the expectations and online habits of the public - in this case of the faithful - to ensure their engagement. That's why I consider it significant to present the philosophy and some of the initial sources of inspiration that led to the success of Doxologia.ro, the official website of the Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina, which has now the most readers (an average of 97.027 unique users daily in 2021) of the official and private religious sites in Romania. Thus, my main research questions are: Why is the web platform Doxologia.ro a special case regarding Christian mass media in Romania? What are the major concepts from which the platform started? Finally, how can a Christian bimillennial tradition be user friendly? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses several responses to the secret police's (non-)involvement in religious matters that posed direct or indirect problems for the regime. The secret police's attitude of allowing communities leeway in dealing with problematic situations had several motivations: to create a culture of self-policing and self-censorship that would defer the punishment to the hierarchical chain of the religious community; so that the community internalized the state requirements; and to infiltrate the community with collaborators in positions of power. Self-punishing and self-censorship were the ways in which communities respected the regulations imposed by the state. The literature on the subject in Romania is scarce and comes mostly from primary texts (memoir, journals, and various histories of religious communities). The article presents a case study of the Sibiu Orthodox Metropolitan See in its interactions with the secret police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on ethnographic research conducted in a number of Orthodox parishes in Bucharest, this article discusses different conceptions of har among Bucharest Orthodox believers, practitioners, and clerics. Har stands for 'grace', 'charisma' or 'gift' depending on the context. An ethnographically grounded analysis of this emic concept, I argue, is essential for two main reasons. First, understanding grace through gratuity allows us to grasp diverse forms of religious change, such as committed church attendance and the detachment from communal religious life, in contemporary Romania. Second, seeing through the looking glass of Orthodox practice allows for unexplored insights into the workings of charismatic authority. The article ends with a seeming paradox: grace is 'something extra', an addition which is best grasped apophatically, that is, through subtraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using as a primary source articles written by clergymen of the romanian Orthodox church in the press sponsored by nichifor crainic, the present study aims at exploring crainic's status as a mentor for a certain part of the romanian Orthodox clergy. This will be done by inventorying the articles written by Orthodox clergymen in these publications and the themes they addressed, and also by analyzing the overlap of themes specific to far-right rhetoric with the broader register of crainic's ideological conception. Finally, the study will show that nichifor crainic exercised a significant influence on a significant part of the Orthodox priesthood (the most notable being Fr. dumitru Stăniloae), although relations with the upper hierarchy (except for Metropolitan nicolae Bălan) where not always cordial and by no means simple. The study does not claim to be exhaustive, because the research purpose can be extended to the case of lay professors of theology and also be supplemented with the use of primary sources other than those strictly relating to the journalistic activity of the clergy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a systematic analysis of the legislation adopted by the Romanian state regarding the status of monasticism is carried out, and the regulations adopted by the Romanian Orthodox Church regarding monasticism are also studied. Legislation and regulations are integrated into a broad historical perspective, which allows an understanding of what was wanted from monasticism, by the church and society, in a certain historical period. The reader has the perspective of the evolution of Romanian Orthodox monasticism and can better understand why, in certain contexts, reform projects were proposed. The study of monasticism in the XIX-XX centuries represents an important component of studying the relationship between religion and modernity in the Romanian space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring a constant minimum income for all clergy is an old problem of the Romanian Orthodox Church. During the royalty, the financial motivation of the lay clergy in Romania was the main concern of the synods, which tried to find support in the Parliament, forming a law project in this regard - one of the initiators being Metropolitan Iosif Naniescu. The precarious financial situation and the dissatisfaction of the lay clergy led the synods to look for new solutions to solve this problem. The chosen solutions would satisfy and displease the lay clergy, the aspirants in theology and the non-clerical staff of the parishes. Among the chosen solutions were the reduction of the number of ordinations and the monopolization of the manufacture and sale of cult candles by creating a production and a distribution network, the resulting profit following to be used to support the salaries of clerical and non- clerical staff of the churches.

Archimandrite Filaret Jocu was one of the most controversial figures of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the first decades of the 20th century. The controversies are not related to his theological education or his moral quality, which were both remarkable, but to the role he played in a few important issues regarding the Church. While studying in Athens, Filaret Jocu managed to position himself within the influential circles of the Church of Greece and make several connections which would prove extremely important over the years. He was one of the clerics who officiated the religious wedding between Carol, Crown Prince of Romania, and Princess Helen of Greece. After Princess Helen’s arrival in our country, Filaret Jocu was one of the closest people in her entourage. Being sent as a secret agent to Greece, he had the mission to examine the Greek people’s attitude towards monarchy compared to the republicanism of Eleftherios Venizelos. A few years later, in 1929, Patriarch Miron Cristea and the Romanian Government entrusted Archimandrite Jocu with undertaking a tour in the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria in order to understand their attitudes in terms of the calendar change, while the official purpose of his visit was searching for carpets for the Romanian Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest. After having served for several years at the Patriarchal Cathedral, in 1941 he was elected Bishop of Argeş, an election which was later revoked due to tensions within the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church and several political interests. Our paper, by means of original archive sources, aims at presenting the main aspects of Archimandrite Filaret Jocu’s life, a servant of the altar and a spy in the benefit of the Romanian Orthodox Church and Romania.

The article analyzes the current socio-political position of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the context of the state of Emergency caused by the pandemic of a new coronavirus that has affected the countries of the European Union. The article considers the interaction of the Romanian Patriarchate with state authorities, medical and educational organizations to establish effective assistance to the population. This is, first of all, the dynamics of the Church’s efforts aimed at fighting the pandemic at various stages of its spread in social service, charity and spiritual care for doctors, patients, people in self-isolation and difficult life situations. Data on the volume of charitable collections and donations from the Church and related non-governmental organizations, associations, and individuals to combat the spread of Covid-19 are entered into scientific circulation. The article reveals the specifics of liturgical activities that combine compliance with sanitary and epidemiological norms and requirements of the authorities in a state of Emergency, on the one hand, and the performance of religious functions and liturgical actions on the eve of the main Christian holiday – Easter, during it and after, in conditions of easing the regime of self-isolation. It is concluded that the Orthodox Church of Romania has shown itself to be not only an active spiritual and moral institution, but also a developed, open part of civil society, taking joint with the state, necessary for the whole society, large-scale actions to combat the spiritual crisis and for the health and decent life of all citizens of Romania.

Every year, the member Churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) are called to actively participate in the meetings organized in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. From my perspective, these moments are an extraordinary opportunity to share in the richness of the Orthodox tradition, which means an act of confession and authentic witness. In the first part, I will present critically the canonical synthesis of the Orthodox, the concept of “Ecumenical Eucharist” and of Lima Liturgy, followed by the recommendations of the Special Commission for Orthodox participation in the WCC regarding confessional and interconfessional common prayer. Then, this article will make a historical presentation of the week of prayer. It is very important to know how this initiative started and how it was accepted at the beginning and over the years. At least in Romania, where we have an Orthodox majority, this week has become a controversial issue produced by those who are against ecumenical dialogue. A special attention is for the actual practice approved by the Romanian Patriarchate. Finally, the article will present the statements of the new Orthodox documents and it will end with some conclusions about this moment of common Christian witness.

The purpose of this article is to study the Romanian Orthodox place of worship of Lunghezza in Rome, utilizing the expression ‘shared religious place’ and thus referring to the shift from secular to religious and asserting that it is now a camouflaged religious place. Using GIS mapping and Digital Humanities methods and tools, the paper analyses the geographical presence of Orthodox Romanians in the Metropolitan City of Rome territory and the architectural typologies of their places of worship. The history and geography of the church in Lunghezza, a former stable converted into a house of worship, reveals the form of the resilience of the Romanian Orthodox parishes, forced to find various and compelling solutions in order to survive as places of worship.

The history of the Romanian Orthodox Church during the communist regime is still far from being known and the historical circumstances are not yet fully understood. In addition to numerous historical sources that can shed light on this rather vast subject, an important resource proves to be the CIA archive. Recently declassified documents reflect a new set of information and describe circumstances that allow for a more nuanced interpretation of the position of Patriarch Justinian Marina in the 1940s and 1950s. This paper aims to explore the Information Reports and Staff notes prepared by the CIA analysts during this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the disputes that existed in the interwar period over the recognition of a Romanian Orthodox bishopric in Yugoslavia (The official name 'Yugoslavia' was only adopted in 1929. From 1918 to 1929, the state was officially called the Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the name Yugoslavia throughout this article.) and a Serbian Orthodox bishopric in Romania. The reason for this was the existence of two ethnically distinct Orthodox Churches (Serbian and Romanian) on the territory of the dualistic Hungarian monarchy before 1918, but both with de facto autocephalous status and territorial overlap. They came into being after the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the Hungarian Orthodox Metropolis to separate the existing parishes and dioceses along ethnic lines. After the break-up of the dualistic monarchy at the end of the First World War, one of the Serbian Orthodox dioceses landed on the territory of Yugoslavia (Vršac) and the second on the territory of Romania (Timişoara). However, both Romanian bishoprics (Arad and Caransebeş) ended up in Romania. Under these circumstances, several Romanian parishes in the Yugoslav Banat remained without a direct episcopal hierarchy. As a result, diplomatic negotiations began between the Romanian and Yugoslav governments and between the hierarchs of the Orthodox Churches of Romania and Yugoslavia on the establishment of a Romanian diocese on Yugoslav territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The success of public health interventions is highly dependent on the compliance of the general population. State authorities often implement policies without consulting representatives of faith-based communities, thereby overlooking potential implications of public health measures for these parts of society. Although ubiquitous, these challenges are more readily observable in highly religious states. Romania serves as an illustrative example for this, as recent data identify it as the most religious country in Europe. In this paper, we discuss the contributions of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), the major religious institution in the country, to the national COVID-19 mitigation efforts. We present not only the positive outcomes of productive consultations between public health authorities and religious institutions but also the detrimental impact of unidirectional communication. Our work highlights that an efficient dialogue with faith-based communities can greatly enhance the results of public health interventions. As the outlined principles apply to a variety of contexts, the lessons learned from this case study can be generalized into a set of policy recommendations for the betterment of future public health initiatives worldwide.

This article examines the disputes that existed in the interwar period over the recognition of a Romanian Orthodox bishopric in Yugoslavia (The official name ‘Yugoslavia’ was only adopted in 1929. From 1918 to 1929, the state was officially called the Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the name Yugoslavia throughout this article.) and a Serbian Orthodox bishopric in Romania. The reason for this was the existence of two ethnically distinct Orthodox Churches (Serbian and Romanian) on the territory of the dualistic Hungarian monarchy before 1918, but both with de facto autocephalous status and territorial overlap. They came into being after the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the Hungarian Orthodox Metropolis to separate the existing parishes and dioceses along ethnic lines. After the break-up of the dualistic monarchy at the end of the First World War, one of the Serbian Orthodox dioceses landed on the territory of Yugoslavia (Vršac) and the second on the territory of Romania (Timișoara). However, both Romanian bishoprics (Arad and Caransebeș) ended up in Romania. Under these circumstances, several Romanian parishes in the Yugoslav Banat remained without a direct episcopal hierarchy. As a result, diplomatic negotiations began between the Romanian and Yugoslav governments and between the hierarchs of the Orthodox Churches of Romania and Yugoslavia on the establishment of a Romanian diocese on Yugoslav territory. Contribution: This article deals with a lesser-known topic on the history of the Orthodox Churches in South Eastern Europe. Because there is no extensive literature on this subject, I have made use of unpublished documents from the archives of the Metropolitanate of Sibiu (Transylvania, Romania).

One of the features of interwar Romania was a quantitative and qualitative increase in sports. During this epoch, Romania followed a Western pattern, despite the significant differences between it and other European countries, for instance, in the case of its rural and illiterate population. In this context, this article aims to demonstrate how Romanian religious representatives reacted to the development of sport in Romania in the 1930s, when the Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches were the principal Christian denominations. Moreover, the counter-reactions to religious criticism of sport in Romania will also be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring a constant minimum income for all clergy is an old problem of the Romanian Orthodox Church. During the royalty, the financial motivation of the lay clergy in Romania was the main concern of the synods, which tried to find support in the Parliament, forming a law project in this regard - one of the initiators being Metropolitan Iosif Naniescu. The precarious financial situation and the dissatisfaction of the lay clergy led the synods to look for new solutions to solve this problem. The chosen solutions would satisfy and displease the lay clergy, the aspirants in theology and the non-clerical staff of the parishes. Among the chosen solutions were the reduction of the number of ordinations and the monopolization of the manufacture and sale of cult candles by creating a production and a distribution network, the resulting profit following to be used to support the salaries of clerical and non-clerical staff of the churches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

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The first secular burial took place in Romania in 1891 (Arghir Parua, a socialist). Starting from this data, this article aims to analyse the current situation of civil funerals in Romania. Changes in the Romanian death system after the collapse of the communist regime in 1989 which required the adoption of the new funeral law (2014), are described. One of the most important regulations in this law is the acceptance of the civil funerals as equal to religious funerals. The article analyses the reactions to this legislation (especially those of the Romanian Orthodox Church) and describes the profile of civil funerals in contemporary Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Inaugural Conference of the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA) held in Iasi, Romania on January 9-12 2019. Topics include relations of the Orthodox Church with the Christians, Orthodox leaders to dismiss ecumenism as a heresy without challenging the authority of the Council itself, and the Council of Crete has resolved the issue of ecumenism.

This study deals with the way in which the Revolution of December 1989 was recorded in the pages of the journal „Mitropolia Ardealului”, the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Sibiu, the Archdiocese of Vad, Cluj and Feleac, the Diocese of Alba Iulia and the Diocese of Oradea. I analyzed the evolution of the religious discourse during january - december 1990, from the texts published in issues 1 - 6 of the theological journal „Mitropolia Ardealului”, regarding the Revolution of December 1989 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postwar history of the Romanian Orthodox Church's remained for decades an underexplored field, if not completely ignored from a historiographical and documentary standpoint. Although in recent years important books and studies were published in the field, it cannot be said that the above statement has lost its validity. This is particularly true with a view to biographies of hierarchs who have occupied the highest ecclesiastical positions during communist rule. A prominent example is Teoctist Arăpaşu, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church between 1986 and 2007. Using a document from 1962 and other historical sources, the article connects the main life events in Patriarch Teoctist's biography with the findings of the historical commissions that assessed recent ecclesiastical history during the 2000s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We will approach the issue of Church art from a theological and especially canonical-legislative perspective, relying on various canonical sources and Church legislation. We shall outline a short history of the regulations regarding iconography, given that church art cannot be dissociated from theology, ever since the first rules that dealt with the matter up to the current Romanian Church legislation strictly regulating complex issues such as the manner ofdepicting the saints or the requirements for being a church painter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The replacement of Church Slavonic and the adoption of the vernacular language by the Romanian Orthodox Church and later by the princely chancelleries of Wallachia and Moldavia is still a controversial question. The Slavonic, adopted by the Romanians in the Xth-XIIth centuries, was not understood by the common people and even by many priests, a situation similar to that of the Latin in the Catholic Church. Despite that, the priests (pop) used, as in the Western world, the sermons, the piety books (especially the Lives of the saints) and the images - especially the church paintings - to deliver the Christian doctrine. The invention of printing and the interest for reading in their maternal language of the bourgeois and noblemen contributed to the translation and diffusion of the sacred books in Romanian in the XVIth century, a process parallel and contemporary, but not totally dependent of the Reformation and the Counter (Catholic)-Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study deals with the way in which the Revolution of December 1989 was recorded in the pages of the journal "Mitropolia Ardealului", the official magazine of the Archdiocese of Sibiu, the Archdiocese of Vad, Cluj and Feleac, the Diocese of Alba Iulia and the Diocese of Oradea. Antonie Plămădeală, Metropolitan of Ardeal, was the first romanian hierarch who denounced the communist regime and also acknowledged that it had a double language. We analyzed the evolution of the religious discourse during the period December 1989 - December 1990, from the texts published in “Mitropolia Ardealului”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past years, there has been a significant increase in mobile applications with religious content. Whether we are talking about Holy Scriptures or the Quran, about liturgical or theological content, digital resources are made available by many interesting applications. The question is, are these applications accurate? How many of them are affiliated with Church institutions? How important would such an affiliation be? What is the situation in Romania, in the Romanian Orthodox Church? In the Romanian-Orthodox digital space there is an abundance of mobile applications, over 20, of which only one is institutionally affiliated. The presence in Romania of many mobile applications developed by private individuals that do not display the source of the liturgical and biblical text is a major concern for the accuracy and authenticity of the information presented. In the first study of this kind in the Romanian literature, we will analyze different examples in order to better understand the functionalities of these applications, but especially to confirm or reject our hypothesis that in the religious environment, an institutionally assumed application is more valuable for keeping the Church teaching unaltered, compared to an application which is the result of a private initiative or even a commercial project. Therefore, we compare the Romanian Orthodox applications with similar applications belonging to a Church that currently has the most complete panel of mobile applications. These are not only fully functional and officially assumed by the Anglican Church, but are constantly updated and maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study treats a very little researched subject in the specialized literature, respectively the censorship of the orthodox press in communism. We turned our attention to the periodical publication "Glasul Bisericii", the official magazine of the Metropolitan Church of Ungrovlahia. During the communist regime, the religious press was doubly censored. This was exercised by two institutions, namely: the Department of Cults and the General Directorate of Press and Printing. The censors of the Department of Cults who dealt with the journals of religious cults did not necessarily have theological studies, for which reason they could not understand certain specialized terms or phrases. This thing can be seen into the report signed by the censor Ecaterina Durosov Macheev, from 1971. Another example would be the typing mystakes that escaped from the watchful eye of censorship, and that could have affected the relations between Romanian Orthodox Church and Russian Orthodox Church and, implicitly, with the Soviet Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study "Tears of Saints" considers some of the humiliations and sufferings endured by the Romanian Orthodox Church, during the second half of the last century, caused by the atheistic communist regime. The author emphasizes the brutality of the "reeducation" and of the "Piteti experiment" that took place in Piteti prison. The moral and religious virtues proved by the heroes of the anti-communist resistance are particularly described. Some of these sublime characters are contemporary saints who sacrificed their lives in order to protect faith and spiritual values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The violent behavior of fascist Orthodox clerics serving in the Transnistrian Orthodox Mission during World War II contributed to the "Romanianization" of Transnistria initiated by the Antonescu government in 1941. These churchmen stand out as bystanders, beneficiaries, and even perpetrators of the Holocaust. Subscribing to the antisemitic programs of the outlawed Iron Guard and of the Antonescu government, these men took an active part in exploiting, robbing, and even murdering both local Jews and other deportees from Bessarabia, Bucovina, and elsewhere in Romania. They illustrate both the suffusion of fascist ideology into all sectors of Romanian society and the role of clergy at every level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Balcanica Posnaniensia. Acta et Studia is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article is based on the little-known sources on the situational pastoral alliance, mutual assistance and Christian charity of the head of the Romanian Orthodox Mission in Transnistria, Metropolitan Vissarion (Puiu), on the one hand, and Archpastors of the Russian Orthodox Church - Metropolitan of Rostov-on-Don Mykolay (Amasiyskyy) and Bishop of Melitopol Seraphim (Kushneruk), on the other hand, at the final stage of World War II. Biblical truths and virtues, service to people and the bright ideals of the Creator remained the cornerstones of the Christian ministry of the Bishop in the difficult conditions of the war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Romanian Orthodox Church has developed in the public space, after 1989, its own narrative about the sufferings endured during the communist regime, highlighting the names of those persons (priests, monks or laypersons) who were detained in the communist prisons as martyrs of faith. Through this discourse, the church wanted to answer those who accused it of collaborating with the communist regime but, at the same time, to recover a memory of the suffering that most of the population was not aware of. Thirty years after the fall of communism, although there have been monuments built and many books have been written about the crimes of Communism, the Church has not officially proclaimed any victim of the communist regime, dead for faith, as a saint of the Orthodox church. This raises perplexity among believers and polemics in public space because, from a symbolic point of view, the act of canonization is, for a believer, the supreme act of consecrating the person's worthiness. The dilemma is the following: is the refusal of canonization an acceptance of the fact that the Romanian Orthodox Church did not have worthy priests during the communist period or has the church hierarchy been prevented from doing so? In this study, we will try to show what lies behind this impasse of religious consecration, but also of memory management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one knows, and it is good for us to reiterate, the Church in Romania is the institution that, before any other, enjoys the largest confidence and trust on the part of the population. This trust is based on the Spirit of Truth on whose foundation rests the spiritual and filial relation between Church and faithful, be it in time of peace or oppression. This is good news, yet no novelty. That is the way things were forever probably, even though hundreds of years ago there were no statisticians to do special research on this topic. In the presentation that follows I do not intend to treat exhaustively any of the aspects of the Church's life or of its implication in the life and history of Romanians; I will approach these aspects here only partially. I considered the aspects here mentioned, some dealt with more in detail, some more generally, sufficient for the purpose of the present paper. The paper can be taken as a starting point for a treatment of the topic at a different length. The references I will make here will regard only the situation of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and not that of the Greek-Catholic or Roman Catholic Churches, of the protestant or neo-protestant denominations or of the Islamic or Mozaic religions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern problem of political correctness appeared recently in the Romanian Orthodox Church too and produced different reactions. In this paper I want to discuss the anti-Judaic language that can be encountered in the cult, particularly during the Holy Week, and the solutions to treat these expressions. In the Catholic and Protestant world, the anti-Judaic speech was abandoned,1 so it seems that only the Orthodox churches have kept the texts that might be deemed as offensive for the Jewish people. As we shall observe, the Romanian Orthodox Church offers an interesting case on this issue. Beside the liturgical texts, I will also approach the problem of the accommodation of the biblical texts in the Orthodox Church, since some modern translations have pushed the modification so far. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study emphasizes the personality of Justinian Marina, the third patriarch of Romanian Orthodox Church, serving between 1948-1977, his relations with well-known democratic politicians, with representatives of political parties, and the dialogue between the Christian Churches during the first years of communist regime, when the atheist forces were stronger and the priests have seen their influence in society diminished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the advancing process of the ethnopolitical and ethnocultural prerequisites of the autonomy of the Orthodox Church in Bessarabia in XIX-early XX century and attempts of their implementation. Methodology. The research is based on the principle of methodological synthesis. It provides the consolidation of the instrumental findings of famous scientific schools, in particular, the civilization approach to the analysis of the historical process and the methods of social and anthropological history along with the mentality discourse. That has enabled to take account of the features of stage development of state and religious institutes, the extent of civilization likeness of states and peoples, possibilities of their cultural and religious self-identification in the polyethnic society. The scientific novelty is in finding out the conceptual approaches to the interpretation of the history of the Orthodox Church in Bessarabia in XIX-early XX century, determining the dominant factors of the development of the national and foreign models of Orthodoxy, substantiating the fact that there were necessary ethnocultural prerequisites for beginning of the autonomy process in the country in the early XXth century. Conclusions. In spite of over hundred-year Russian colonization and serial russification of Orthodox Church in Bessarabia, it preserved ethnocultural and ethnoreligious principles of national identity. Russian bourgeois-democratic revolutions naturally aroused not only the country autonomy movement but also autocephalous one violently ceased by Romanian conquest of Bessarabia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current analysis looks at the ways in which free marriage was regarded in the Romanian society until 1914. The starting point is the change in the legal status of the institution of marriage in Romania starting with the nineteenth century. Laicization of marriage led in this way to heavy criticism from the part of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Under the influence of European models, the issue of free marriage started to gain ground in Romania as well. In conclusion, it is underlined that the subject was a minor one in Romania, being practiced only as exceptions to the rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanian Journal of Journalism & Communication / Revista Română de Jurnalism şi Comunicare- RRJC is the property of Romanian Journal of Journalism & Communication and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

After a short period of rule by the National-Christian government, presided over by Octavian Goga, on 10 February 1938 King Carol II ended Romania's democratic experiment, by installing a regime of royal dictatorship. The leader of the Orthodox Romanian Church, Patriarch Miron Cristea, was named President of the Ministers' Council. Although, during his time in power, Miron Cristea did not adopt laws against the Jewish population, he did preserve all the anti-semitic legislation that he inherited from the previous government. As such, in accordance with decree-law number 169, from 22 January 1938, Romanian citizenship was withdrawn from a significant number of Jews. The claims of a persistent existence in Romania of a 'Jewish issue' were clear evidence that the new government formula was no less nationalist than the Legionary Movement, and this policy towards the Jews was cynically used to conciliate the numerous sympathisers of the Romanian extreme right. London officials were deeply interested in the situation in Romania, as Great Britain was a power named on the 1919 Protection Treaty of Minorities, a treaty signed also by Romania through its representatives sent to Paris, during the peace conference that followed the First World War. The existing situation in much of South-Eastern Europe regarding national minorities flagrantly defied the provisions of the document agreed in France, and the fears of the British were more than justified. The difficulties that the Romanian Jews faced in 1938 had important consequences, including raising a question over the official visit that King Carol II wished to make to Great Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]