Romanian Church United with Rome Greek-Catholic: Encyclopedia II - Romanian Church United with Rome Greek-Catholic - History

Romanian Church United with Rome Greek-Catholic - History

In 1700 many of the Romanians of Transylvania, headed by Bishop Atanasie Anghel, entered into full communion with the see of Rome, while keeping their Byzantine liturgical rite.

Metropolitan Atanasie Anghel and his Holy Synod took this course to obtain for the Romanians of Transylvania (then part of the Habsburg Empire) the same rights as the other nations of the Unio Trium Nationum (nobility, Transylvanian Saxons and széklers). The event coincided with the arrival of the Jesuits, who attempted to align Transylvania more closely with Western Europe.

The bishop's residence was moved from Alba Iulia to Făgăras in 1721 and then, in 1737 to Blaj, which became a centre of learning and national awakening for all Romania. When, in the 19th century, Hungary followed a Magyarization policy, the Greek-Catholic Church played a prominent part in resisting ethnic assimilation, with (the Transylvanian School) Şcoala Ardeleană and the Transylvanian Memorandum.

Other eparchies were set up at Oradea (1777) and at Gherla and Lugoj (1853); and Blaj, under the title of Alba Iulia and Făgăras, became their metropolitan (in the sense of archiepiscopal) see.

In 1948, the Communist regime that had taken power deposed all the bishops of this Greek-Catholic Church and, on 21 October 1948, the 250th anniversary of its union with the Roman Catholic Church, arranged the "spontaneous" passage of all its members, who were then some 1,500,000, to the Romanian Orthodox Church, to which some of its property, including four cathedrals, were given, while the rest was confiscated

The Catholic bishops, and many Greek-Catholic priests, were arrested for "undemocratic activity", mainly for refusal to give up ties with the Holy See. In the meantime, the Orthodox Church was "purged" of priests unfriendly to the regime and, for the next 40 years, it had good relations with the Communist authorities.

Iuliu Hossu, Bishop of Cluj, refused the proposal of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch, Iustinian Marina, to became Orthodox Archbishop of Iaşi and metropolitan of Moldavia, and so successor of the Orthodox Patriarch. He remained under house arrest, and each year sent a memorandum to the President of the Republic, asking that the country's laws and Romania's international agreements be observed with regard to the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church. In 1969, Pope Paul VI asked him to accept appointment to the cardinalate. As he preferred to stay with his people, the Pope made him cardinal only "in pectore", i.e. without publishing the fact, which he revealed only on 5 March 1973, three years after Bishop Hossu's death.

Another remarkable Romanian ecclesiastic of the time was Alexandru Todea (1912-2002). Secretly ordained as a titular bishop on 19 November 1950, he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in the following year. He was given amnesty in 1964 and on 14 March 1990, after the fall of the Communist regime, was appointed Archbishop of Făgăraş and Alba Iulia, becoming a cardinal in the following year.

After more than forty years of surviving only in secrecy and illegally, the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic, was able to appear again in public only after the 1989 Romanian Revolution.

With some delay, some of the Church's property, in particular the cathedrals of Cluj, Făgăraş, Lugoj and Oradea, which the Communist Government had transferred to the Orthodox Church, have been restored to it.

On 16 December 2005, the Church was raised to the dignity of a Major Archiepiscopal Church.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki