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Based on specialized literature, unpublished historical sources (archive materials), speeches of political leaders of the time, press and legislation of the time, memoirs, etc. the evolution of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the post-war period is analyzed; the international and internal factors, radical changes in the life of the largest ecclesiastical institution in Romania. This article presented the influence of the main ruling party (Romanian Labor Party/ Romanian Communist Party) in the life of the Romanian Orthodox Church. A review is made of the main political and repressive instruments (Ministry/Department of Cults) that influenced the course of religious life under the communist regime. The moderate actions, as well as the radical ones used by the political authorities on religious life, were presented. The political discourse related to the edification of Romanian society was analyzed, identifying in this way the place of the Romanian Orthodox Church. In order to survive the new conditions, hostile to religious cults, the clerical institution had to apply different forms of “coexistence” with the political authorities. Although the legislation of the time provided for religious freedom, the political factor kept a close eye on the religious establishment. In the context of the “edification of the multilaterally developed social site society”, the role of the church in society became increasingly uncertain.

Current debates about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its effects cover a wide range of perspectives, including optimistic views of a better world, as well as pessimistic concerns about an uncontrollable superintelligence that will dominate humankind to our detriment. AI is also revolutionizing religion by fundamentally changing its core dimensions, facilitating worldwide interconnectedness, and allowing individuals to engage with religious teachings and rituals regardless of their physical location. Our study sets out to explore the junction of AI, ethics, and Romanian traditional religious practices and analyze how they interact and create tension between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, that is, right belief and right behavior. In addition, we seek to assess the speed at which an AI-driven society will develop and the level of opposition it will face. By taking an information-oriented rather than dogmatic perspective, the study aims to contribute insightful knowledge that can support advancement towards spiritually sustainable goals and an ethically responsible society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, I will expose the perspective of the ecumenical dialogue in the theology of Fr. Ion Bria, one of the well-known Romanians involved in the ecumenical movement. In the first part, after a short introduction, I will present the most important biographical milestones of the Romanian theologian, as well as some details about his activity in the World Council of Churches. Then, in the second part, I will critically present the most important aspects of Bria's ecumenical theology, as well as the reception of these ideas in contemporary Orthodox theology, in discussion with common witness and eucharistic communion within ecumenical dialogue. In the last part, I will present the critical remarks on ecumenism in Bria's theology. Through this analysis, I will emphasize important directions that the ecumenical dialogue can exploit today to overcome some historical, cultural or theological preconceptions and misunderstandings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study's main objective is to identify and analyze the attitude toward prayer of teenagers in a denominational school in Romania and the need to use AI-assisted tools. To find a satisfactory answer, we considered it necessary to identify how they pray, i.e., freely or by calling on the prayer book, and whether they questioned whether artificial intelligence could be an agreeable support. The research also takes into account the documents of the Romanian Orthodox Church from which the attitude of the Hierarchy towards new technologies in general and artificial intelligence in particular emerges. How attentive is the Church to these realities, and how open is it to incorporate them? Does it have any good reason to consider tools like e-rosary in the Catholic world or Alexa Pray in the Anglican world in the near future? The introduction addresses Romania's socio-political, educational, and theological context, and the discussion focuses on how the literature on digital religion and its subchapters is received in the Romanian theological landscape. The research method includes qualitative, questionnaire, and textual analysis; it is an interdisciplinary approach, namely practical theology and the study of digital religions. The questionnaire was administered to 216 respondents, respecting all research ethics requirements. The results reveal that young people prefer to pray freely, use the prayer book moderately, and have not gathered information regarding artificial intelligence that could help them. However, they are open to a future offers from the Romanian Orthodox Church, including AI-assisted tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Communist regime in Romania sought to subordinate various societal sectors, including the judicial system and religious denominations, to its ideological goals. This study delves into the relationship between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Communist authorities, highlighting the various legal and canonical strategies employed to exert control over religious entities. Specifically, the research focuses on the Romanian Orthodox Church's alignment with Communist regulations, leading to legitimacy and canonicity in state interventions. Through an examination of legal sources and archival materials, the study emphasizes the changing dynamics of religious freedom in Romania during the Communist era. An in-depth prosopographical investigation is conducted into the case of Father Arsenie Boca, shedding light on the canonical framework of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the early Communist years and its implications for a modern understanding of this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between social crises and religious cults3 in Romania is a topic neglected by the specialized literature. In this paper, we propose a series of analyses regarding how social crises have influenced religious life in Romania and the mechanisms by which religious cults have played a role in solving or amplifying them. We will refer to the Romanian Orthodox Church, the majority religious denomination, and some of its positions on events/stages of these social phenomena between 1990 and 2023. This text does not propose a thorough examination of these relationships but attempts to sketch perspectives of analysis in response to the following research questions: What do Romanians think about the Church’s involvement in the life of society and implicitly in social crises? Why is it important to understand the position of religious actors on the evolution of social crises? How have religious denominations influenced the improvement/ aggravation of some dimensions of social crises? Official stances of Religious Cults during different social crises were examined, alongside instances of informal religious practices aimed at enhancing societal conditions. In Romania, religious cults have been essential partners of the State in reducing social crises, providing support through their rich infrastructure and human resources or their symbolic position in society. However, there have also been cases in which religious cults have generated conflictual social states and tension, producing or aggravating social crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between social crises and religious cults in Romania is a topic neglected by the specialized literature. In this paper, we propose a series of analyses regarding how social crises have influenced religious life in Romania and the mechanisms by which religious cults have played a role in solving or amplifying them. We will refer to the Romanian Orthodox Church, the majority religious denomination, and some of its positions on events/stages of these social phenomena between 1990 and 2023. This text does not propose a thorough examination of these relationships but attempts to sketch perspectives of analysis in response to the following research questions: What do Romanians think about the Church's involvement in the life of society and implicitly in social crises? Why is it important to understand the position of religious actors on the evolution of social crises? How have religious denominations influenced the improvement/aggravation of some dimensions of social crises? Official stances of Religious Cults during different social crises were examined, alongside instances of informal religious practices aimed at enhancing societal conditions. In Romania, religious cults have been essential partners of the State in reducing social crises, providing support through their rich infrastructure and human resources or their symbolic position in society. However, there have also been cases in which religious cults have generated conflictual social states and tension, producing or aggravating social crises.

The main themes covered in this study concern the relationship between the far-right nationalist movement and religion in Interwar Romania, following the transformations that occurred in the political and legal status of the representative institutions, in the sense of protecting their own identities and objectives, as well as in the direction of obtaining a role as important as possible at the decision-making table in the state. Also, relying on the analysis of the recently declassified documentary fund in the Romanian Intelligence Service Archive, I have aimed to obtain a well-documented answer regarding the way in which the religious rhetoric promoted by radical groups in the Legionary Movement amplified the adversity towards the authorities - whether they were military, intelligence, political or religious – sometimes leading to violent disputes with them.

Even though Romania is a predominantly Orthodox country, the construction of the National Cathedral – a symbolic edifice of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), has sparked numerous pro and con discussions in Romanian society, with strong echoes in the mass media. Therefore, this study analyzes how the Romanian online secular media portrayed the National Cathedral, examining the news frames used in the articles about the iconic edifice of the ROC. A news frame analysis and quantitative content analysis were applied to a corpus of 311 articles published between 2008 and 2021 by media outlets with high brand trust. A deductive approach was used to analyze the corpus based on five pre-defined frames: conflict, human interest, responsibility, morality, and economic consequences (Semetko and Valkelburg, 2000). The research shows that the secular press in Romania presented the subject of the National Cathedral, focusing primarily on the financial aspects and those related to various conflicts, neglecting the religious aspects. The results highlight that the articles that do not mention the financial aspect in the title or introduction tend to follow a writing pattern where this aspect is discussed later in the text. The study’s findings offer a valuable contribution to the academic understanding of how the media covers religious constructions, with a focus on the National Cathedral. The research sheds light on the potential for biased media coverage to create negative/positive attitudes towards religious institutions.

This article examines the relations of the Romanian Orthodox Church (RoOC) towards the Romanian Greek Catholic Church (RGCC), a Byzantine rite church formed around 1700. Until World War II, the RGCC was a substantial ecclesial entity, but in 1948 the new communist leaders of Romanian dissolved the UGCC and seized its properties, allowing the RoOC the use of most religious properties. Former RGCC clergy who did not join the RoOC were persecuted, but the church survived underground, emerging in 1989 with considerably fewer adherents than in 1948. Attempts by the RGCC to recover properties seized in 1948 were met with strong resistance by RoOC hierarchy and parishes. Notwithstanding the involvement of the RoOC in ecumenical undertakings, it has not acted in accordance with Christian principles and in conflict with its commitment to ecumenism, by supporting the dissolution of the RGCC, and its opposition to the restoration of seized properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mission of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the diaspora in general and in Spain in particular is a growing challenge nowadays. For this reason, it is imperative that the profile of the missionary priest be defined by certain characteristics that are particularly important in the mission he carries out. In addition to preaching and catechesis, the mission of the priest in parishes in the diaspora must be expressed through its liturgical dimension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to display a less known part of Spiru Haret's activity: his vision and efforts for reforming the activity of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Alongside its traditional, Liturgical activity, Haret proposed a larger involvement of the clergy in the social problems of their communities. Therefore, alongside school teachers, the priests had the duties of establishing and/or supporting local associations, clubs and committees active in domains like education, morals, culture, hygiene and even economics. The aim of Haret's initiative was to modernise Romanian society by raising its culture, morality and financial independence, especially for the peasants, who constituted the huge majority of the Romanian pre-war society. According to his perspective, the mission of the Church couldn't be limited just to its theological and liturgical spectrums, as it should also target the extra-liturgical environment in which the parishioners lived their earthly lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Annunciation" Orthodox Church in Guşteriţa is the only church founded by Metropolitan Andrei Şaguna in the surroundings of Sibiu. But it was not the first Orthodox church built in this little community. Despite the unfortunate historical context, the beginnings of the Orthodox parish in Guşteriţa were not as modest as one would think. This paper reconstructs the historical context and follows the traces of the first Orthodox church in Guşteriţa, pointing out that at the end of the eighteenth century, the Romanian community had managed to build a worship place made of stone. While the structure has long since been demolished and knowledge of its exact location has been lost, the site of this important structure can now be approximated based on available topographical evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to display a less known part of Spiru Haret's activity: his vision and efforts for reforming the activity of the Romanian Orthodox Church. Alongside its traditional, Liturgical activity, Haret proposed a larger involvement of the clergy in the social problems of their communities. Therefore, alongside school teachers, the priests had the duties of establishing and/or supporting local associations, clubs and committees active in domains like education, morals, culture, hygiene and even economics. The aim of Haret's initiative was to modernise Romanian society by raising its culture, morality and financial independence, especially for the peasants, who constituted the huge majority of the Romanian pre-war society. According to his perspective, the mission of the Church couldn't be limited just to its theological and liturgical spectrums, as it should also target the extra-liturgical environment in which the parishioners lived their earthly lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapter, the book titled „The State Church or The In-State Church? A history of the Romanian Orthodox Church 1918-2023“ (Biserica de stat sau Biserica în stat? O istorie a Bisericii Ortodoxe Române 1918-2023) is analyzed. The book appeared in 2023, at the Humanitas Publishing House in Bucharest, signed by Professor Oliver Jens Schmitt from the University of Vienna. At the beginning of the text, after a review of the most important authors, who wrote both about the appearance of the book and about its launch, basic volume issues are addressed. It is an analysis of the preface as well as other aspects. Particular attention is paid to the fourth chapter which dealt with the relationship between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the communist dictatorship between 1944 and 1989. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presents a synthetic canonical analysis on the organization of monastic life in the Romanian Orthodox Church, in the period 1859-1866. The reign of Alexandru Ioan Cuza was a period of crisis of Romanian monasticism. "With the middle of the 19th century, our monastic life enters a period of crisis and the dominance of the secular spirit. It is true, in the meantime, some attempts were made to get out of the impasse, but the fruits did not always correspond to the efforts" (Viaţa monahală în ultimii 10 ani: 510). The crisis does not originate in church regulations. The crisis was fueled by the modernist reforms that Alexandru Ioan Cuza initiated. Actually, the period between the election of the Moldavian colonel Alexandru Ioan Cuza as ruler of both principalities, on January 5, 1859 in Moldova and on January 24, 1859 in Wallachia and the moment on February 11, 1866, when Cuza is forced to abdicate, is a time of extensive civil reforms, which did not bypass the Church and, therefore, monastic life. The regulations of the Cuza regime impose the State as absolute authority regarding the organization of monasticism, especially regarding economic and administrative aspects. The consequences of the regulations from 1859-1866 will affect Romanian monasticism until the 1930s. The main factor that determined such a reaction from the civil authorities during the Cuza period was the historical context, which highlights a series of problems with sometimes legal content, regarding the functions and rights of some Greek monks and hierarchs in Romanian monasteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the public presence of the Orthodox Church in Romania during the 1920s and considers the responses given by the Orthodox Church of Transylvania, a branch of Romanian Orthodoxy, to the challenges faced by postwar Romanian society. The article approaches this encounter from the point of view of the Orthodox articulation of the public role of the Church. By examining the legal and pastoral discourse of the Transylvanian Orthodox Church, it argues that its clergy and laity saw themselves as religious actors inspired by democratic ideals originating in the Christian Gospel. The article suggests that the Orthodox efforts to respond to the postwar moral crisis from the perspective of a democratic ecclesiology and liberal notion of religion challenge the monolithic and nationalistic view of interwar Romanian Orthodoxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between December 1916 and November 1918, approximately 66% of the territory of the Kingdom of Romania, including Bucharest, its capital, was under the domination of the Central Powers. This academic approach certifies the fact that the Orthodox Church in the Kingdom of Romania was not exempted from the major trials experienced, during that period, by the population and the other institutions of the state. It highlights some relevant aspects of the “Golgotha” suffered by some hierarchs, clerics, monks and believers, who lived through this unfortunate chapter in the national history. Those “crucified” by the terror practiced by the occupying enemy continued to believe in the resurrection of the Romanian nation. Strong echoes of the temptations, passions and hopes of this capital moment for our existential destiny were also fully felt in the Bishopric of Buzău, chosen as a case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main themes covered in this study concern the relationship between the farright nationalist movement and religion in Interwar Romania, following the transformations that occurred in the political and legal status of the representative institutions, in the sense of protecting their own identities and objectives, as well as in the direction of obtaining a role as important as possible at the decision-making table in the state. Also, relying on the analysis of the recently declassified documentary fund in the Romanian Intelligence Service Archive, I have aimed to obtain a well-documented answer regarding the way in which the religious rhetoric promoted by radical groups in the Legionary Movement amplified the adversity towards the authorities - whether they were military, intelligence, political or religious -- sometimes leading to violent disputes with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first half of the 20th century, the Romanian community in the United States of America managed, after efforts that lasted several decades, to establish an Orthodox Episcopate connected to the Romanian Orthodox Church. The joy was short-lived due to the establishment of the communist regime in Romania, which also affected the spiritual life of Romanians across the Ocean. Trying to exercise control over the Romanians in the United States, the communist regime established another Episcopate, parallel to the existing one, producing a rift that is still preserved today. After the fall of the communist regime, the two dioceses of the Romanian Orthodox made mutual gestures of reconciliation and rapprochement, and from the mid-2000s they engaged in a surprising and accelerated unification process. This study traces the stages of this unification process, the content of the proposals that were made in this regard and its outcome. Also, in the conclusions, the study tries to provide some background explanations regarding the causes that led to the failure of the entire enterprise.

The present essay details the intricate relationship between the Romanian Orthodox hierarchy and the conflict in Ukraine on various levels (philanthropic, social, ecclesiological, political). While most of the Orthodox bishops in Romania continue to voice their concern about the war, few condemn the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church in endorsing the military involvement of Russia in Ukraine. Another factor that contributed to the moral anaesthesia of the Orthodox bishops has to do with the silent political preference for the pro-Russian, ultranationalist Alliance of the Union of Romanians party (AUR). While the Romanian Patriarchate condemned vehemently the political instrumentalization of Orthodoxy, against the official position of the hierarchy, a part of the regular and monastic clergy still nurtures admiration for Vladimir Putin, seen as the main benefactor of the Orthodox Church worldwide and his pro-Christian policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate's liturgical renewal movement has a spontaneous character, but without a well-defined agenda. This paper examines some of the reflections from renowned Romanian theologians about the liturgical renewal in the Orthodox Church and explores how they define the notion of liturgical reform, how they perceive the idea of change in worship, and what a liturgical renewal might look like. Moreover, it examines some concrete reforms that have already been put into practice, but without specific authorization from the Romanian Church hierarchy. The purpose of this approach is to find a starting point for an official synodal and academic debate on the possibility to implement a systematic liturgical reform at an institutional level.** [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article aims to conduct an analysis regarding the concept of social responsibility in the Romanian Orthodox Church during the COVID-19 period. The research investigates the social activities conducted by the Church in the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to emphasise its social responsibility toward the community and its impact in times of crisis. In this regard, a descriptive case study was conducted that analyses how the Church implemented the decisions taken by the national authorities, as well as its own measures, in order to fulfill its social mission in such difficult times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While different political realities shaped the three Principalities (Moldova, Wallachia and Transylvania) that later formed Romania (1918), the spiritual unity of the Romanian people has been nourished since the Middle Ages by the Eastern Christian faith. Situated at the intersection of cultural and religious currents, Romanian spirituality has often interacted with that of the Ruthenian Slavs, Serbs or Bulgarians, Greeks, Hungarians, Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists. For this reason, the first Romanian literary works were translations or adaptations that were always under the influence of or produced in opposition to these cultures and beliefs. This study investigates, from a liturgical and doctrinal perspective, the first manual of liturgical training, published in the Romanian language at Iași (1697) translated by Jeremiah Cacavelas: Holy Teaching about the Holy and Divine Liturgy. Considered by some specialists to be an adaptation of similar works by Simeon of Thessalonica or Nikolaos Bulgaris, the manual presents in the form of questions and answers the teaching and spiritual understanding of the Orthodox Church regarding the Holy Liturgy. The manual also explores other Orthodox Christian teachings regarding the church building, angels, the nature of Grace, liturgical vestments, feast days and so forth. Throughout the volume, Jeremiah Cacavelas does not avoid controversial theological subjects that divide the East and West concerning transubstantiation, the nature of Grace and so forth. Cacavela’s manual became quite widespread in the Romanian Provinces; in some areas it was used until the 19th century.

In this study, I will expose the perspective of the ecumenical dialogue in the theology of Fr. Ion Bria, one of the well-known Romanians involved in the ecumenical movement. In the first part, after a short introduction, I will present the most important biographical milestones of the Romanian theologian, as well as some details about his activity in the World Council of Churches. Then, in the second part, I will critically present the most important aspects of Bria’s ecumenical theology, as well as the reception of these ideas in contemporary Orthodox theology, in discussion with common witness and eucharistic communion within ecumenical dialogue. In the last part, I will present the critical remarks on ecumenism in Bria’s theology. Through this analysis, I will emphasize important directions that the ecumenical dialogue can exploit today to overcome some historical, cultural or theological preconceptions and misunderstandings.

The study’s main objective is to identify and analyze the attitude toward prayer of teenagers in a denominational school in Romania and the need to use AI-assisted tools. To find a satisfactory answer, we considered it necessary to identify how they pray, i.e., freely or by calling on the prayer book, and whether they questioned whether artificial intelligence could be an agreeable support. The research also takes into account the documents of the Romanian Orthodox Church from which the attitude of the Hierarchy towards new technologies in general and artificial intelligence in particular emerges. How attentive is the Church to these realities, and how open is it to incorporate them? Does it have any good reason to consider tools like e-rosary in the Catholic world or Alexa Pray in the Anglican world in the near future? The introduction addresses Romania’s socio-political, educational, and theological context, and the discussion focuses on how the literature on digital religion and its subchapters is received in the Romanian theological landscape. The research method includes qualitative, questionnaire, and textual analysis; it is an interdisciplinary approach, namely practical theology and the study of digital religions. The questionnaire was administered to 216 respondents, respecting all research ethics requirements. The results reveal that young people prefer to pray freely, use the prayer book moderately, and have not gathered information regarding artificial intelligence that could help them. However, they are open to a future offers from the Romanian Orthodox Church, including AI-assisted tools.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The articles presents some differences regarding the terminology used by the Romanian Orthodox Church, on the one hand, and the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic, on the other. The analysis is based on the text of the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom. The differences concern not only strictly religious terms, but also neutral words. This seems to be the result of a deliberate linguistic policy of the Greek Catholic Church, which often uses different terms than the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Orthodox terms in question were borrowed from Slavonic or Greek, while the Greek Catholic terms are Romanian words inherited from Latin or recent loanwords from Latin and modern Romance languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the development of elementary schools supported by the Orthodox Church in Transylvania between 1868 and 1921. Until 1918, Transylvania belonged to Hungary. In 1918, it was united with the Kingdom of Romania. As Hungary was a particularly complex state in ethnic and confessional terms before 1918, the school system developed under the coordination and financing of the churches. The government intended to gradually replace them with schools run by communities or state. It was not until the end of the 19th century that radical measures were taken. The situation was fully resolved just after the unification of Transylvania with Romania when Romanian Orthodox denominational schools were nationalised and transformed into state schools. Contribution: Although summary works on the history of education in Romania or various research on the history of schools at the local level have appeared in Romanian, the impact of governmental and legislative decisions in Hungary on Orthodox confessional education in Transylvania has not been analysed. In German, the historian Joachim von Puttkamer has dealt with this perspective but especially concerning the schools in the Slovak areas of Greater Hungary. This PhD thesis of the author, P Brusanowski, was the first approach in this direction regarding the Romanians in Transylvania. The article presents for the first time in English a short analysis of the relationship of the Orthodox Church authorities in Transylvania to the educational policy decisions of the central authorities in Budapest. The parallel use of the reports of the Ministry of Education to the Hungarian Parliament, and the reports of the school councils of the executive body of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania to the ecclesiastical legislative forum, is an important part of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the consultative synod at Constantinople in 1923, the Romanian Orthodox Church agreed to adopt a revised version of the Julian calendar. This meant a break with tradition that brought about a series of crises on a spiritual and political level. Dissent movements, known as Old Calendarist, started to emerge in the villages of Moldavia and Bessarabia; led by defrocked monks, these groups posed a threat for the Romanian Orthodox Church and for the newly formed state and its modernising goals. Accused of sympathising with the communist ideas, as well as of propagating them, the Old Calendarist leaders were labelled as dangerous Bolsheviks and aggressive measures were adopted by both state and church authorities in order to destroy the movements and disperse their members. Based on press articles of the time and archival documents, the present study analyses the development that the Old Calendarist movement underwent in Bessarabia, a region with a strong monastic tradition, as well as the discourse and politics of state authorities against this specific community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though Romania is a predominantly Orthodox country, the construction of the National Cathedral - a symbolic edifice of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), has sparked numerous pro and con discussions in Romanian society, with strong echoes in the mass media. Therefore, this study analyzes how the Romanian online secular media portrayed the National Cathedral, examining the news frames used in the articles about the iconic edifice of the ROC. A news frame analysis and quantitative content analysis were applied to a corpus of 311 articles published between 2008 and 2021 by media outlets with high brand trust. A deductive approach was used to analyze the corpus based on five pre-defined frames: conflict, human interest, responsibility, morality, and economic consequences (Semetko and Valkelburg, 2000). The research shows that the secular press in Romania presented the subject of the National Cathedral, focusing primarily on the financial aspects and those related to various conflicts, neglecting the religious aspects. The results highlight that the articles that do not mention the financial aspect in the title or introduction tend to follow a writing pattern where this aspect is discussed later in the text. The study's findings offer a valuable contribution to the academic understanding of how the media covers religious constructions, with a focus on the National Cathedral. The research sheds light on the potential for biased media coverage to create negative/positive attitudes towards religious institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This article presents the development of elementary schools supported by the Orthodox Church in Transylvania between 1868 and 1921. Until 1918, Transylvania belonged to Hungary. In 1918, it was united with the Kingdom of Romania. As Hungary was a particularly complex state in ethnic and confessional terms before 1918, the school system developed under the coordination and financing of the churches. The government intended to gradually replace them with schools run by communities or state. It was not until the end of the 19th century that radical measures were taken. The situation was fully resolved just after the unification of Transylvania with Romania when Romanian Orthodox denominational schools were nationalised and transformed into state schools. Contribution: Although summary works on the history of education in Romania or various research on the history of schools at the local level have appeared in Romanian, the impact of governmental and legislative decisions in Hungary on Orthodox confessional education in Transylvania has not been analysed. In German, the historian Joachim von Puttkamer has dealt with this perspective but especially concerning the schools in the Slovak areas of Greater Hungary. This PhD thesis of the author, P Brusanowski, was the first approach in this direction regarding the Romanians in Transylvania. The article presents for the first time in English a short analysis of the relationship of the Orthodox Church authorities in Transylvania to the educational policy decisions of the central authorities in Budapest. The parallel use of the reports of the Ministry of Education to the Hungarian Parliament, and the reports of the school councils of the executive body of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania to the ecclesiastical legislative forum, is an important part of this article.

This article examines anti-Semitism in Romanian Orthodoxy prior to World War II and during the Romanian Holocaust. Romanian religious ethnonationalism articulated by hierarchs, clergy, and theologians provided the ideological backdrop for government anti-Semitic measures, underpinned the ideology of a violent religious-fascist organisation, and fostered a social ethos and suspension of morality which facilitated participation of Orthodox clergy and faithful in the mistreatment of Jews. Subsequently, the Church sought to conceal its role in the persecution of the Jews, portraying itself as a powerless victim of fascism. The paper advances a fivefold typology of a majority church behaviour towards religious and ethnic minorities, and concludes that the attitude of the Romanian Orthodox Church towards Jews in the 1930s and during World War II was largely one of approval, connivance, and collusion with discrimination and violence, to the detriment of the universality of the Gospel and the Church, and Christian charity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a two-year postponement caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the General Assembly of the WCC took place in Karlsruhe, Germany under the banner "The Love of Christ Moves the World towards Reconciliation and Unity". For the preparation of the Karlsruhe General Assembly, the WCC organized a series of preparatory activities, which aimed at structuring and optimizing the program of plenary and small-circle ecumenical meetings and events. In parallel, the "Ecumenical Youth Assembly" meeting brought together about 400 delegates, the discussions held in this framework being subsumed to the desired reconciliation, in this case, "reconciliation with ourselves, with others and with the world". The Karlsruhe General Assembly was represented by the so-called "ecumenism of the heart", the call to deepen the love between people starting from the awareness and full understanding of the love with which Christ embraced humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The secret police archives present the life of the religious underground as seen by the secret officers who were seeking to facilitate those communities’ destruction. The state’s official narrative about these clandestine groups is mirrored in alternative documents and narratives. This article focuses on the Old Calendarist Orthodox monastic community of the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery in the Strada Televiziunii in Bucharest at the end of the communist regime. It showcases the life of the monastery as described in the diary of a monastic novice whose written account of becoming a monk described the last days of the monastery before its destruction by the secret police in 1983. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Father Dimitri Dudko’s fame as a popular 1970s Soviet Orthodox priest and his public ‘recantating’ and subsequent disgrace in 1980 shed light on several aspects of religion in the late Cold War. Diasporas like the ROCOR fostered practices and beliefs-especially conservative ones-forced to go underground in the homeland. Soviet atheism responded to revived religious practice worldwide, with Dudko’s persecution being a part of that response. The formal and informal relationships between ROCOR clerics and Dudko, and between Dudko and the KGB, suggest that Dudko’s apparent about-face may have had deeper roots and longer-lasting effects than previously suspected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the forging of a carceral legionary theophany based on oneiric experience and the apparitions of saints to imprisoned members of the Iron Guard in contemporary Romania. It also approaches the post-Communist instrumentalization of the legionaries’ prison experience (dreams, visions of the Virgin and saints, “dreams of terror”) in supporting their claim of canonizing fascists martyrs as saints of the Romanian Orthodox Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study continues the description of Metropolitan Anastasie Crimca’s already-published 17th-century Slavic-Romanian manuscripts. The presentation of these manuscripts – now kept at the State Library of the Moscow Historical Museum – help us better understand the richness of this bishop’s scholarly activity and the activity of the Moldavian Scriptorium at the beginning of the 17th century. Created for Dragomirna Monastery, this liturgical book is described and analyzed in all its details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010, even though the official websites of the Romanian Orthodox Church were making progress - especially the websites of the Patriarchate, the Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina and the Romanian Orthodox Metropolis of Western and Southern Europe - they were still far from having the popularity of non-official or private religious websites such as crestinortodox.ro, calendar-ortodox.ro, resursecrestine.ro, sfaturiortodoxe.ro, razbointrucuvant.ro, ro.orthodoxwiki.org. As smartphone apps (iPhone and Android) have become more popular, the Bible, the Lives of the Saints and the Orthodox Christian calendar have been seen as sources of financial opportunity by some Romanian entrepreneurs, who have developed private websites and apps using religious content. My study analysis some of these main non-official and private websites, with an overview of the Christian Web in Romania in its early years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grigore Iscu was born on 21st of January 1912 in Poduri village, Bacău County. In 1924, he was chosen for the Orthodox faith as novice at Bogdana Monastery (Bacău County). During 1943-1945 he was a missionary priest of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transnistria Region, protosyngellos and exarch of the monasteries from Oltenia Eparchy and an abbot of Tismana Monastery (1945-1948). He supported the National Anti-Communist Resistance Movement from Oltenia which led by Ioan Carlaon? and Radu Ciuceanu. Gherasim Iscu was arrested by the Securitate on 26 September 1948 and sentenced to ten years of hard prison. He was detained at Craiova, Aiud prisons and the Danube-Black Sea Canal (Poarta Albă/White Gate) work camp where he was subjected to reeducation. He died on 25 December 1951 at Târgu-Ocna prison hospital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to analyse the activities of Potter’s Field practice in Romania as part of the Patriarch Miron Orthodox Association. From its very beginning it was orientated against the apparition of cremation in Romania, realized in the first cremation at the Cenușa Crematorium in Bucharest (1928). The target was to ‘save’ poor people from cremation, considering that the cremation aimed to remove from the local authorities the pressure of supporting the costs of burials for unidentified bodies and bodies that were unclaimed by families (‘the social cremations’). Therefore, the Potter’s Field practice developed in Romania in an original way in comparison to other countries. This situation indicated a way of translating cremation into reality in Romania and expressed some of its particularities in this country (the implication of the authorities, cremation as a personal choice or the forms of criticism by the religious environments). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensity and nature of ties between the Church and political parties was covered by a rich literature. However, we know relatively little about why the Church would support a newly emerged political party formed in a competitive space, in which other parties had in the past enjoyed the Church's support. This article aims to explain why many members of the Romanian Orthodox Church campaigned for the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) in the 2020 legislative elections. Our analysis relies on 18 semi-structured interviews conducted with Orthodox priests from different parts of the country. The findings illustrate that the traditionalist priests supported the party. These priests felt cornered by the existing anti-clerical attitudes in Romanian society, declared themselves disappointed by the mainstream parties for abandoning the Church, and perceived the EU as a threat to the traditional Romanian values and way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]