INTRODUCTORY STUDY

Communism has proved yet another fact difficult to deny, namely that, on principle,
as an extension of the atheist revolutionary "fundamentalism," it conducted the
same policy adverse to religion on two different planes. The former is the one of
faith, where they act as atheists, pursuing to destroy God's presence in the soul
and mind of people, to destroy the image of Homo religiosus. In this respect, the
communists took the path of the deicide, by ideologically demolishing faith but
also by eliminating or physically isolating the believers and their shepherds from
society, from the national communities of the whole world. The latter plane is the
one of the church institution, i.e. the plane of the legal status of denominations,
of the relations with the State, of the fortunes, of their recognition irrespective
of the degree of autonomy or of the extreme subordinations accepted under treaties,
concordats or other modalities that do not run counter to the constitutional order
(cults not accepted by the law).
Both planes and the repressive, direct or dissimulated measures deriving therefrom
have been running counter to the human rights principles, to the freedom of
conscience and to the exercise of these freedoms.
20th century Romania experienced one totalitarian regime. It was the one of
communist origin and Soviet inspiration, extending between. 23 August 1944 and
December 1989. The communist totalitarian regime gradually acquired a state
terrorist character, due to the "participation" imposed by different methods that
ran counter to human rights and involved all institutions of the State in the
monitoring and repression of the country's own citizens (a genuine interpretation
of the human rights attests the citizens' millenary religious and even Christian
origin)1.
Through internationalist extensions, these methods infringed upon religious
freedoms in the countries annexed or caught in their influence sphere.
In keeping with the so-called radical revolutionary theory implemented most often
through coups d'etat, the entire population was forced through blackmail and terror
(as it did not have freely acquiesced organization alternatives) to become obedient
versus the goals pursued by the establishment, by its universal ideology, by the
single parties - instruments for putting into practice the destruction of the
"class enemies." They were geared to "re-educating" the whole society. But terror
was exercised notably against religion and the representatives of the traditional
Churches, deemed "conservative" and "reactionary." Tragic evidence is to be found
in the history of communist revolutions (whatever name they might have taken) from
the French Revolution and what it inspired - 1848, the Paris Commune, the anti-
Christian struggle methods in Latin America against the "Colonial Church" and the
promotion of "Liberation Theology", the strategy of fragmenting the Christian unity
into countless sects in the two Americas - to the forms instituted by totalitarian
communist revolutionarism beginning in 1917 in Russia and followed by the vast
complementary experiments in Asia and particularly in the East-European countries,
from 1944 to 1984-1990. The communist spirit that inspired the ideology of the
"world revolution" influenced to a large extent the world control of the anti-
religious and especially anti-Christian struggle either through the policy
conducted by the Komintern (Kominform), by the "peace movement," by other forms of
the atheist "world solidarity." Often the anti-religious policy ran hand in hand
with the interests of the states, with the national movements and with the
manipulation of communities by esoteric groups.
Such states of affairs generated resistance on the part of religious institutions
everywhere even when they had to accept compromises with the authorities in the
totalitarian communist countries. This holds true for the Orthodox. Catholic,
Buddhist and, to a lesser extent, the Muslim, Mosaic or Protestant Churches. A
highly important support resided in the preservation of religiosity as a form of
the everyday culture, from intimate inner feelings to the hidden events (baptisms,
weddings, and funerals with religious rituals) or even ones happening in public (as
in the communist Tibet), to the worst communist repression, leading to a minimal
survival of faith in Albania, where all structures of the religious life were
destroyed, or in the USSR, which for 70-80 years was the bastion of the Marxist-
Leninist anti-religious struggle in its spheres of influence: states, peoples,
intellectuals, universities, trade unions, allegedly ecumenical organizations etc.
Francois Furet emphasizes H. Arendt's assertion: Concentration camps reveal the
essence of totalitarianism, rounding it off to the effect that the basic inhumanity
of these ideological regimes has to be opposed to the Divine transcendence, as
Gurian pertinently shows. The latter upholds that the European intellectual left,
as a whole, is antifascist, not anti totalitarian. That is why he thinks highly of
George Orwell, the author of the well-known novel 1984. written back in 1949 and,
equally, of Raymond Aron, who are exceptions from the intelligentsia's time-serving
conformism, owing to their analytical capacity.
One should not overlook, however, the role H. Arendt assigned to terror under
totalitarianism, to total, terror as a law governing the movement of History under
Bolshevism, or of Nature with the Nazis, replacing the positive laws; total terror
becomes an essence of government and a principle of movement. The true essence of
all Ideologies was revealed by the role it plays in the totalitarian domination
machinery, becoming independent from the other human experiences.
The totalitarian regime destroyed all the social, juridical and political
traditions of the country (adding to which are the spiritual ones - A.A.).
The present dictionary shows that in any country where the communist regime is
enforced, it expresses state terrorist totalitarianism and that destruction of
religion is one of the major goals pursued with a steadfastness rarely met in world
history, even though it should have waited one more century before reaching the
deepest roots of religion as a whole and of Christianity in particular.
After the 20th century atheist experiences, we are recording today the following
values regarding the spread of Christianity in the world:
1) Catholics - 872, 104, 000 out of whom: Roman-Catholics - 862, 422, 000 and
Uniates (Eastern) - 9, 682, 00
2) Protestants - 339, 990, 000 out of whom: the United Church (Reformed and
Lutheran) - 65, 400, 000; Lutherans - 44, 900, 000; Reformed / Presbyterians - 43,
500, 000; Methodists - 31, 650, 000; Pentecostals - 59, 000, 000; Holiness - 6,
125, 000; Adventists - 6, 200, 000; Congregational - 2, 900, 000; Anabaptists
(Mennonites) - 1, 250, 000; Moravians - 750, 000; Quakers - 500, 000; and various
(other Neoprotestant sects) - 27, 475, 000.
3) Orthodox - 139, 380, 000, out of whom: Russians - 92, 542, 000; Romanians -18,
000, 000; Greeks - 13, 430, 000; Serbs - 8, 100, 000; various - 7, 326, 000
4) Anglicans - 52, 500, 000
5) Monophysites - 30, 267, 000 out of whom: Ethiopians - 17, 333, 000; Coptic - 7,
919, 000; Armenians - 3, 350, 000; Syrians - 1, 665, 000
6) Nestorian Church: close to Protestants - 30, 500, 000 and close to Catholicism -
14, 600, 000.
After the end of World War II, countries such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia,
Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia and a good part of
Germany's territory (up to Berlin) remained under the influence and direct control
of the former USSR.
The anti-religious policy of the occupiers manifested itself immediately after
August 1944 and especially after 1945, in different conditions, according to the
prevailing structure of the religious denominations.
In Russia, after 1917, the Bolshevik party was not late in starting the religious
repression of the Orthodox Church (O.C.) and then against the other denominations
in the territory of the USSR.
Here below are a few aspects of the Bolshevik repression against religion and
churches:
a) After the communist revolution of February 1917, an all-Russia Synod is held,
which restores the independence of the patriarch from the state (autocephaly).
b) The October 1917 revolution triggers the collapse of the O.C.'s unity, the
secularization and bullying of millions of believers, the ousting of ecclesiastical
personalities and the subordination of the Church.
c) The action of secularizing the Russian intelligentsia and the workers had
notable antecedents dating to the late 19th century (see the theories of the
communist Gramsci).
d) The period 1918-1948 (the decree on the separation of the Church from the State,
and not of the legal status) records a ruthless struggle against the O.C. and the
seizure of all assets (from all denominations). In 1927, Metropolitan Sergey
recognizes the authority of the Soviets and the opposition against the communist
totalitarian State comes to an end.
e) The repression - 150 bishops interned in the camps on the White Sea coast; wide-
scope atheist campaign; between 1917 and 1923 (the "Lenin epoch") 14,590.000
persons were victimized, including 40,000 priests; between 1924 and 1947 there died
ca. 36,000,000 people, including 5,000 priests (by virtue of the Kirov law which
provided for summary trial and rapid execution, a law promoted in 1794 by Couthon
for the "enemies" of the French Revolution).
f) The world's biggest Orthodox Cathedral, inaugurated in 1883 (the Cathedral of
Christ the Saviour), which had taken 45 years to build, is pulled down in 1931, in
just four months, on Stalin's order. Worth mentioning from among its riches are:
the central dome covered with 173 tons of copper; the massive cross which took the
height of the monument to 103 m.; 14 bells, with the central one, the Tsar's bell,
weighing 24 tons; 12 bronze gates, 48 very tall bas-reliefs; 3000 candlesticks; a
monumental iconostasis decorated with emeralds and gold, icons, over 170
commemorative marble plates etc.
g) A report submitted to Boris Yeltsin by Iakovlev, who headed the Commission for
the Rehabilitation of Political Victims, shows that 200,000 clerics were martyred
and 500,000 were detained and deported between 1917 and 1980. By 1937, 136,900
clergy had been imprisoned and 85,000 had been assassinated. In 1938, 28,000 were
arrested and 21,500 were executed. In 1922 alone, they assassinated 8,000 prelates,
including Metropolitan Beniamin, following the Bolshevik rulers' pressures with a
view to taking over the church treasure estimated at ca. 300 million dollars.
Current assets of the Church were distributed to the poor but the very precious
ecclesiastical objects were retained by the "new power." In Bessarabia (which after
the occupation became the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic), in 1944-1945 there
existed 24 monasteries and hermitages (9 for nuns and 15 for monks) with 1007 nuns
and 440 monks. In 1954 there Were 7 monasteries with monks and 8 for nuns, the
personnel aggregating 1393 persons, down from 2414 in 1925 (when it was already
reduced following the repression in the first seven years of Bolshevism). The data
comes from the review Destin romanesc (Romanian Destiny), 4/1996, no. 12, pp. 85-
100. The assets seized from the O.C. were worth a fabulous 2.5 billion gold rubles.
40,000 churches and half the number of mosques and synagogues were destroyed.
h) The clergy were compromised through the KGB's recruitment (Iakovlev s report
showed that many members of the clergy had acted against their conscience) under
reprisals, so that they can hardly be singled out for reproaches7.
i) The communists started a furious action to instill atheism into the people's
conscience, from children to the elderly, through the vilest practices of
slandering faith (which, as a matter of fact, were found among the crimes
perpetrated b\ the terrorist re-education organized in the prisons in Romania where
the young people of the 1948 generation were detained): publication of atheist
literature, forms of propagandist^ derision of the worship forms, the ban on
religion in schools, encouragement of blasphemies notably against the Christian
religion, and so on.
j) Between 1959 and 1964, under Khrushchev, the repression was revived: out of
20,000 churches there remained 13, out of 77 monasteries there were left 17, five
out of eight seminaries were shut down, and the Council of Religious Affairs was
set up to intensify state control over the Church; in 1964-1989 people were
arrested and interned in psychiatric hospitals; dissidence surfaced among the
clergy. I. Andropov, the former chairman of the KGB, infiltrated the Church as part
of a demolishing diversion, i.e. promotion of the actions characteristic of a
communist variant of the "Liberation Theology" within the traditional Church, which
after decades of terror was anyway helpless.
k) It is worth mentioning that the notorious Basic Guidelines of the NKVD for the
countries in the Soviet orbit (Moscow, 2 June, 1947 [top secret] K-AA/CC 113, Index
NK/003/47), item 34, "recommended" special attention to be paid to churches.
Cultural-educational activity has to be so directed as to generate antipathy for
the churches. It is necessary to monitor the church printing houses, the archives,
and the content of sermons, of songs, of religious education and of burial
ceremonies. That was in 1947, at the outset of anti-religious measures in the
countries occupied by the Soviets.
The Soviet model was to be forced upon the countries in eastern Europe and even on
those in Asia (Tibet), North Korea, Mongolia, China, Cuba, etc., in keeping with
the strategic, confessional or political particularities.
- The repression in Bulgaria (1948-1963) was more restrained and the Uniate Church
remained relatively autonomous.
- In Albania, the repression was ruthless, one may say it was even absolute with
regard to the church institution. Even among the Muslims there were thousands of
persecuted people.
- In the Catholic countries, the Roman-Catholic Church was sometimes tolerated
while at other times it was intimidated. Certain compromises were made in Hungary,
Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic countries. The Iron Curtain functioned in its
most sensitive spots.
- The Protestant Church was obedient towards the state", which also explains the
low number of victims.
During the Vatican Council II, 1962-1965, there were 150 Catholic bishops in the
whole communist world, but the proceedings were attended by few bishops and by none
from Russia, Romania, China or North Vietnam. The Orthodox Patriarch
(Constantinopolitan) and the Ecumenical Council of Churches (a Soviet creation)
failed to send observers.
In Romania, the traditional churches and the cults were forced to take over the
Soviet subordination system imposed by the Communist Party (although the
autocephaly principle was encroached upon). Most of the quite large Orthodox
population was subjected to unfailing terror, given the deep roots the Orthodox
faith had in the people's conscience and, on the other hand, the fact that the
Romanian right wing was pervaded by the Christian spirit. The four-party "Front"
that assumed the power after 23 August 1944 did not want to see anticommunist
resistance movements based on connections that could become operational with all
the other Eastern countries invaded by the Red Army.
The Soviet totalitarianism also had a long-standing experience in point of imposing
its programme on other countries (within the Soviet Union and outside it through
the Komintern and through other allegedly ecumenical networks of influence).
The anti-religious repression model applied in Romania, between 1944 and 1989,
basically reproduced the ideology and policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union and of the NKVD.
Here are the main components of the repressive policy.
1) The concern over forming a communist party which was absolutely missing. The
method? Rallying those who wanted power, the undecided, the ignorant and those
considered as "compromised", misleading them with "democratic" promises.
In all the major fields of the intellectual life were created "democratic,"
tolerant organizations "open to collaboration." This is how associations of the
Writers, Jurists, the united trade union movement, the Progressive Youth, the
National Democratic Front, the Democratic Community of Jews and other such
organizations came into being.
For the Orthodox clergy, the Democratic Union of Priests was set up after March
1945.
2) The position of minister at the Department of Religions was held in turn by
Gheorghe Pop, Constantin Burducea, the priest of a commune parish (March 1945
-April 1946) and Stanciu Stoian, who ensured the interference -of the Sovietized
state in the activity of the churches; the persecution of the clergy began as early
as 1945.
3) After Ion Antonescu's arrest, the new government decided to send to prison most
of the ethnic Germans who were citizens of Romania; they organized the first
detention camps for the enemies of the Soviet-type regime, including many priests;
the Church underwent massive purges, for different reasons that served as pretext
for reducing the ecclesiastical personnel; application of the obligations deriving
from the Armistice Agreement, of the Allied Control Commission in Romania which,
although it was quadripartite, was dominated by the Soviets, of the Paris Peace
treaty, accompanied by complementary documents or requirements related to the
special circumstances (the NKVD Protocol, orders brought by the Soviet advisers
directly from Moscow, the "visits" paid by Andrei Ianuarevich Vyshinski etc.).
4) In 1948, confessional schools were closed down; a sustained anti-religious press
campaign was conducted; on 1 December 1948, under Decree no. 358 the Greek-Catholic
Church (united with Rome) was dissolved. The measure was dictated by the politburo
of the Romanian Communist Party and imposed arbitrarily (the RCP resolution was
made by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, Teohari Georgescu, Ana Pauker, Vasile Luca and Emil
Bodnaras, the last two having direct responsibilities for the "religious policy").
Moreover, the episcopal seats of the Roman-Catholic Church were reduced from 6 to
2.
Monastic life in the traditional churches was restricted almost down to
nonexistence. The measures were stepped up after the monarchy had been abolished
(1947), concurrently with the start of the campaign of arresting the participants
in the anticommunist resistance movement (about 200 thousand detainees and five
times as many people subjected to the Securitate investigations), reaching
nationwide proportions by 1964. The Patriarch of the Orthodox Church died while in
office in 1948. Many bishops of the Christian church were dispossessed of their
seats and arrested, after which they died, or were just purged or subjected to
forms of house arrest.
In July 1948, an all-Orthodox Conference was held at the level of metropolitans in
the Orthodox countries under Soviet occupation. On 19 July 1948 the concordat with
the Vatican was denounced, religion was eliminated from schools, on the basis of
the new education law, the fortunes of these schools were confiscated, and a new
law on the cults was passed, providing for the restriction of areas in the
possession of the traditional churches (mostly the Orthodox Church).
Previously, several bishops and vicars of the O.C. had been deprived of their
dioceses, some being even isolated in monasteries, just like the Roman-Catholic and
Greek-Catholic ones, while others were relegated to the lower ecclesiastical
echelons.
5) Arrests were made among the ecclesiastical personnel of the Orthodox Church,
Romania's majority church, as well as among the personnel of the other two
traditional churches. Gradually, the O.C. was dispossessed of the inherited assets,
of fields and buildings, through a policy of secularization. Later arrests were
operated also among other cults. After 1944 in Romania there existed 5 metropolitan
seats (of Ungro-Vlahia, Moldavia, Transylvania, Oltenia and Banat), 9
archbishoprics and 12 bishoprics.
6) A cursory statistic of the data contained in the Dictionary indicates certain
evaluations regarding the ordeals the ecclesiastical personnel in Romania was
subjected to in the totalitarian period.

Detained ecclesiastical personnel surveyed in the Dictionary (2544 persons):

� Detained priests:
- Orthodox priests 1,888
- Greek-Catholic (Uniate) 235
- Roman-Catholic 172
- Protestant pastors 67
- Neoprotestant 25
- Muslim 23
- Mosaic 13
� Church chanters - 49
� Ecclesiastical personnel whose religion was not identified - approximately 100
In interpreting the data in the Dictionary, the figures will be referred to the
ecclesiastical personnel of the respective cults before 1948.
Orthodox prelates (metropolitans and bishops) not comprised in the Dictionary (the
prelates of the c .her cults are presented in the Dictionary):
� Deprived of their seats - 17
� Exiled- 15
Purged priests and church chanters (belonging to the various denominations):
� Priests (under Law no. 139/1947, art. 5) - 966
� Church chanters (under Law no. 146 bis/1947) - 614
� Under the same laws 11 members of the administrative personnel were purged.
Monks who participated in the National Resistance Movement (not included in the
Dictionary): 60
� According to Radu Ciuceanu, the situation of the monks who supported the NRM in
Oltenia was the following: Tismana Monastery - 9, Lainici - 5, Turnu - 4,
Stanisoara - 6, Govora-St. Filofteia - 2, Dintr-un Lemn - 2, Polovraci - 3, Bradet
- 1, Rasca -3, Cozia - 3, Frasinei - 6, Bistrita - 2, Gura Motrului - 2.
7) The ecclesiastical corps was subjected to very harsh investigation, detention
and torture methods as well as to recruitment actions by the bodies of the Ministry
of Internal Affairs. The pressures were meant to make them abjure their faith, the
church and God, to fall prey to libertinism and corruption. That influenced the
evolution of the ecclesiastical corps.
Considering that admission to the Theological Institute, accession to a doctor's
degree and to hierarchical positions depended on criteria pertaining to the
"personal dossier" or to one's acceptance of political interferences, we shall
realize that the communist regime conducted a continuous straggle to destabilize
the religious institution. This straggle acquired different nuances depending on
the denomination, on the nation involved, on the period of time when it was active
among the intellectuals or the laymen during the long domination of communist
totalitarianism.
The Gendarmerie and the political police were ordered to watch the religious events
and especially the political manifestations of the clergy since the RCP leadership
knew all the clergy were inimical to the regime established after 1944. Order no.
7424/1947 issued by the Bucharest Regional Security Inspectorate requested not only
the surveillance of priests but also the drawing up of personal cards, according to
a model, which had to be submitted to the repression bodies by 1 December 1947".
Unfortunately the selection of documents and of the content is rather inconsistent,
often biased, the sources cited dating from the communist period.
8) The massive destruction of churches (mostly the Orthodox ones but also mosques
and synagogues - see Lucian Schwartz and Aristide Streja's recent work The
Synagogues in Romania during the Communist Period, 1997) rounded off the pattern of
the anti -religious repression exerted by the communists.
Of course, there also existed some reparatory acts, notably in relation to
historical monuments belonging to the heritage and being part of the national
history or of the material value proper (the tourism industry, the diplomatic
image).
9) There existed significant cases of conversion during detention, of secret
consecration of the Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic bishops, as well as cases of
former prisoners who after their release became priests or monks and were again
arrested, just as there were many who died in prison or in the "freedom" of unclear
circumstances (in the anticommunist resistance straggle).
A principle of the moral theology teaches us that great fear (the darkening of the
mind in face of an imminent evil) invalidates the act. But aren 7 deportation,
imprisonment and death reasons for serious fear'2'! Don't they also explain the
cases of those who were subdued?
10) A special case is represented by the tragedy of the Christian population that
remained in the USSR (such as in the Moldavian SSR which returned to Romania in
1941-1944 and then remained under occupation).
We are in possession of a list of the ecclesiastical personnel in Bessarabia who
sought refuge in Romania (those of them who have been detected by now). Many ended
up in the Romanian prisons.
11) The scope of the repression grows and religious interdictions prevent and
discourage any public manifestation (by "top secret order" no. 27936 of December
1948). The ideological blaming of these customs of a religious nature generates the
phenomenon of avoidance or even "secrecy" - religious weddings, baptisms, funerals
with religious ritual, attendance of religious service, observance of religious
holidays, etc. The population often encroached upon these restrictions, which led
to the infiltration of the Churches and of the ecclesiastical personnel by
informers, to the end of controlling the "re-education" pursued by the atheist
communist regime.
The blame put on party members, on people working in schools, military units or
official institutions amounted to a serious warning. The active censoring of the
mass media and of the printed matter put out by the metropolitan publishing houses
was a strict rule.
12) For the purpose of approximate evaluations, in the absence of official data, we
studied the monographic work of the priest Dr loan Dura, Romanian Monasticism
between 1948 and 1989 (collection "Testimonies"), Harisma Publishing House, 1994;
the research was conducted by our collaborator Virgil Constantinescu (a member of
the Association of Former Political Detainees in Romania).
Data vvere collected regarding the monastic establishments (monasteries,
hermitages, succursal monasteries, chapels) as well as the number of those who
lived there (monks, nuns, brothers). The estimates were put forth by officials or
apparently credible publications, therefore being determined by the level of
information and the circumstances in which they were made public (at home or
abroad), as well as by the moment between 1949 and 1989 when they were issued, that
having been a period marked by the known repressive events. Here below is a
synthesis with the figures between brackets indicating contradictory presentations
made in the same year and different sources.
Monachal establishments
(the figures vary depending on where and when they were made public):
1955 - 200
1956 - 188
1957 - 191 (197) (197) (200)
1960 - 250 (123) (250) (123)
1961 - 200
1981 - 147 (100)(100)(130)
1986 - 100 (140) (103) (100)
1987 - 114(130)
1989 - 114 (150) (100) (150)
The number of monks and nuns:
1949 - 164 (in monastic seminaries and monasteries)
1951 - 10, 000 [?]
1953 - 6, 000 (7,000) (7,000)
1955 - 7, 500 (3 monastic seminaries)(7,000) (7,500)
1956 - 6, 156 + 56 seminaries
1957 - 6, 011 (6, 011 + 106 schools and workshops) (7,000) (6,500) decree no. 410
on the reduction of monachal units (2, 000) (1,000) (2,000)
1961 - 7, 000
1966 - 2, 000
1968 - 2, 500
1969 - 2, 500 (3,000) (2,068)
Neither after 1989 have we found any official statistics or statistics compiled on
the basis of research.
In the review Vestitorul Ortodoxiei of October 1995, p. 4, there is a synthesis
(Gh. Vasilescu) which indicates several redistributions of the dioceses compared to
1925 (Greater Romania) but not also the number of churches or servants between 1944
and 1989. Compared to 1925 (18 dioceses), in 1947 there is the same number, while
for 1995 there is mention of 21 dioceses. Yet in 1950 there existed 12 dioceses,
then 13 within the same 5 metropolitan bishoprics. In 1925 there were 9,067 priests
and in 1995 - 8,729, although the number of churches went up from 10,735 in 1925 to
12,546 in 1995, the number of priests being sensibly smaller in 1995 than in 1925
(despite the natural population growth).
We infer that for the growing population of the country,-which in 1995 needed 21
dioceses, after 1950 there were only 12-13 Orthodox dioceses. This situation lasted
until 1990 (in 1944, 2 dioceses were lost with the territories robbed from Romania
and in 1947 there existed the same 18 dioceses). It is natural for us to note the
sharp fall in the number of priests, dioceses and churches between 1948 and 1989
but also the fact that most of the population kept up the light of faith.
13) The persons held in custody, including prelates or theologians, experienced
physical and mental torture, being subjected to various methods of re-education -
the final goal of the communist revolution.
The main methods were:
investigations by the political police (violent in most cases);
penitentiary punishments (long individual isolation without food or with a
starvation regimen, regular beatings):
the so-called self-re-education (the detainees were forced to give up their
anticommunist activities and outlook through the prison regime imposed by the
political police, using the methods of ideological persuasion - books, newspapers,
parcels - for self-denunciation at Suceava, Targsor or Gherla. for young people,
students, workers and peasants, concomitantly with enrollment - at Suceava - in the
Organization of Detainees with Communist Convictions, which had been set up in
order to reform the masses of detainees;
the "re-education" of the prelates belonging to the main traditional Churches, who
were not sentenced but were forced by all means of persuasion to abjure their
beliefs concerning the shepherding of the faithful population, and of the
representatives of the banned denominations;
the re-education based on terror organized by the higher echelons of the political
police or of the penitentiaries who resorted to the tactic of pitting the detainees
against each other and inciting them to violence, to giving up their beliefs and
providing information on the anticommunist resistance. Pitesti, Gherla and the
Canal;
the "self-analysis" practiced at Aiud under the guidance of an "operative group"
made up of 16 political police officers, the detainees having to expose themselves
and to disown, publicly and in writing, their anticommunist beliefs;
the re-education through work at the labour camps at the Canal, Salcia, Periprava,
the Cavnic and Baia Sprie mines, which meant physical and moral destruction
(mention is made of a special brigade made up of about 40 priests who were part of
the colonies at the Canal);
re-education through isolation (after release) based on house arrest; cooperation
with the political police; deportation; continuous harassment, etc. The population
was thus subdued by an intensified "atheist education."
The total number of victims of the anticommunist struggle, from 1944 till 1989 -
people who died, were assassinated, disappeared or were deported - is not known,
just like the specific data concerning the ecclesiastical personnel of any
denomination. We hope this Dictionary will help provide new documentary
information.
Whatever their results, these methods contributed to the physical destruction of
many detainees and, especially, to perverting some of them, who we do not think we
are entitled to blame, since millions of party members and free citizens accepted
to collaborate, without having passed - many of them - through the Caudine Forks of
detention, blackmail and systematic harassment.
The Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Personnel Imprisoned under the Communist Regime
This dictionary was compiled as part of the thematic research programme of the
National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism with regard to the Violation of
Human Rights under the communist totalitarian regime (coordinator Paul Caravia),
which began in 1995 at the same time with other subthemes.
In collecting and organizing the data several stages were covered. In 1990-1992,
the contributors to the Romanian Parliament's former 14th Commission for abuses,
Gheorghe F. Anghelescu and Octavian Roske, sent all Cults and diocesan centres in
this country a form requesting data on the religious repression. They returned
memorandums and reports on the violation of the right to faith, to a religion of
one's own choice.
At the same time, after 1990 a Reflection Group for the Renewal of the Church
functioned for a while, independently trying to collect oral data on the detention
of clergy belonging to various denominations, under the communist regime.
The few data gathered were not made public.
A group of former political detainees, members of the Association of Former
Political Detainees in Romania (AFDPR), including Cicerone Ionitoiu (who at the
time lived in Paris) and Eugen Sahan, who in 1991 began publishing the Documents of
the Resistance (volumes 1-8), studied the archives of the AFDPR and, together with
other contributors - standing out among which were Dr Nicolau, the priest
Constantin Voicescu, Mircea Dumitrescu and Traian Popescu - collected also other
data from the oral memory of the former political detainees.
In January-March 1995, the group at the NIST drew up a research methodology based
on the idea of checking the data used with the help of crossed sources, if
possible, which should lead to the clarifications needed with a view to introducing
the former detainees in such a Dictionary. In other words, they meant the
Dictionary to coordinate the various sources by checking once more, rounding off
the data on the anti-ecclesiastical repression and making sure those data were
accurate.
Consequently, we conceived and submitted to the Cults, in March 1995, a nominal
table to be filled with the following: surname, name and monachal name, date and
place of birth, position in the hierarchy of the respective denomination, place of
service, year of arrest, reason, sentence and the time served in prison, detention
places, date and place of death or whether the person is alive. Much later it was
noticed that, immediately, on 21 March 1995, the Chancellery of the Patriarchate
-mentioning the NIST's address no. 722/1995 - accepted, based on approval from the
Patriarch, to answer our request to all the dioceses. Moreover, they reminded the
dioceses that, under Resolution no.2402/1991 of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox
Church, they were asked to draw up documentary tables to be forwarded to the
Chancellery of the Holy Synod. Thus we subsequently learned that duplicates had
been received, of which other researchers, too, had been appraised, whereas the
NIST gained access to such data quite late. Anyway, the NIST got its own replies
from most Orthodox dioceses, except the one of Tomis (Constanta) which refused to
cooperate although it was their region that harboured the camps of the Canal, the
resistance of the Babadag forest and of other places in Dobruja, as well as the 90
priests recorded by the documentary literature (they were forced to do hard labour
until it killed them; according to some detainees, that happened at Salcia, Balta
Brailei while according to others, it happened at Periprava or at Mamaia (?)...)
We though that the research had to acquire an ecumenical extent and we approached
all the official cults, reverting subsequently with a new request (the letters of
10 Sep.1996, bearing the number 1857).
The requests put forth during talks with the representatives of the Romanian
Intelligence Service's Archives and of the State Secretariat for Cults, inl995-
1996, were not met. 653 mentions came from the dioceses. The data received are
organized in a manuscript file and in a databank created purposefully. Further on
we shall present the table with the sources that answered our requests, encoding
the answers correspondingly (either institutions or collaborators of the NIST).
In October 1995 we learned that the Archbishopric of Vad, Feleac and Cluj was
compiling a similar work. On the occasion of his visit at the NIST, the Most
Reverend Bartolomeu Anania confirmed the above and we appraised him of the stage we
were in, with the 1,269 persons recorded (1,180 Orthodox, 30 Roman-Catholic and 59
Greek-Catholic). We agreed to work together. Then His Reverence, going to Cluj,
studied with Deacon Stefan Iloaie the data concerning each person. The result was a
modest but consistent 86-page work published in January 1996 under the title
Confessors behind Bars. Servants of the Church in the Communist Prisons, printed by
the review of the Cluj Archbishopric, Renasterea. A protocol on this cooperation
between the representative of the NIST and of the Archbishopric was concluded in
Cluj, on 6 November 1995. The complete variant taken to Cluj covered 1,321 persons
who were checked by both delegates, overlapping being eliminated. Corroboration of
the different sources attested that the information largely coincided, coming from
persons and institutions that had offered data to the NIST and to the
Archbishopric. We were glad we had fulfilled the moral duty of drawing up a first
list of the ecclesiastical personnel imprisoned for political reasons (hierarchs,
priests, monks, professors, theologians, theology students and readers from various
parishes in the country), whether they belonged to the Orthodox, Roman-Catholic or
Greek-Catholic confession.
We had information that the Romanian Intelligence Service and the General
Directorate of Penitentiaries had "salvaged" the two computers the First and Second
Office of the CC of the RCP used for recording all the political detainees.
Therefore we insisted for a natural cooperation, but that was not possible. That is
why the NIST could survey only 20 penal files from the Military Justice Directorate
at the Ministry of Justice, an operation that took several months. We found out
from those files, for instance, that one Orthodox priest appeared in the table
conveyed by his diocese as having been imprisoned for 5 years, whereas he had
actually served 18 years in jail. The file also contained other names which we
extracted. Those were but a few out of the thousands of files that should have been
studied. For this reason this Dictionary is not fully satisfactory, the work having
to be furthered by younger specialists desirous to make public the sacrifices the
Churches assumed in order to preserve the faith in God and in the democratic
values.
Under such constraints, we started work on a Dictionary including the necessary
specifications for each name of a Church servant, insofar as we had such data. This
being a field where misinformation is practiced, we sought not to personally
interpret the cases recorded, even if there were possible suspicions or
undocumented assertions. Consequently, we decided to specify in the Dictionary the
sources of any assertion, these sources being printed under the recorded item.
Therefore for each name, we provided elements of identity, biographical elements
and the nonconcordances in the documents surveyed.
In December 1995 we submitted the NIST's work, which included 1,321 names, to His
Beatitude Patriarch Teoctist (in the presence of Academician Virgil Candea). The
book later published jointly with the Archbishopric of Cluj comprises 1,653 names.
The present Dictionary contains about 2,500 names and substantial additions of a
biographical and documentary nature. A recent estimate made by author Cicerone
Ionitoiu (Romania libera, 10 May 1997, p. 6) indicates "about 4,000 imprisoned
priests, including some who were sentenced two or even three times, while others
were sentenced for administrative charges. Therefore 4,000 members of the clergy
thrown in jail, over 250 of whom were exterminated..."
We do not know whether the author took into account only the priests, as we believe
he did, unlike the present Dictionary, which surveys all the categories of
ecclesiastical personnel.
If many names are missing from the Dictionary, that is because we did not receive
all the answers we requested from all the official cults (especially from the
Protestant Church). The Neoprotestant cults were not included in the Dictionary
(except for the cases with the express mention preacher or pastor) since we
proposed not to include laymen who suffered for the sake of their faith, their
confessional hierarchy being uncertain. For instance, Jehovah's Witnesses let us
know that all their members were preachers and that they did not have a hierarchy
distinct from the administrative one. The Mosaic religion sent us a list of 11
persons for whom the birth year was not specified. The Archbishopric of Tomis and
the one of Covasna and Harghita failed to reply.
We resorted to researching the detention literature (memoirs, diaries) published
after 1989. About 170 works were read, many of which gave names of priests (often
without sufficient elements for identification - see the encoded list of these
books). Moreover, we studied church reviews issued after 1989, which contained data
of use to our research. Unfortunately, the collections at the Orthodox Patriarchate
or at the Catholic Archbishopric are neither complete nor organized according to
the rules of library science; that explains certain incomplete datings in the
Dictionary, in the case of source R (reviews).
For instance, I for one was unable to identify a priest, a hermit, who was with me
in November or December 1950 at Gherla, in a re-education room. Despite all my
efforts not even now have I been able to mention him properly. Also, from February
until October 1950, in secret room 5 at Jilava I had as a mate a Roman-Catholic
vicar of Oradea, who was Hungarian and a writer and was of Cumanian origin and who
was not recorded in the tables of the Roman-Catholic Archbishopric. I found him two
years later with help from Father Fodor from Oradea. He had been badly beaten by
the political police and he had had, just like myself, his shoes torn from the
beating with iron crowbars on the soles of his feet. Moreover, I cannot recall a
pastor considered a leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist denomination; he was a
vegetarian and in 1952 or 1953 we were imprisoned together at the Rahova
headquarters of the political police (Bucharest). I have never known his name. I am
just fulfilling the duty of mentioning all those who were not identified. People
should not forget that Father Vasile Tepordei from Cahul was tried by a Soviet
Court in Constanta and sent to the USSR, to the camps of the Soviet gulag (gulag is
the Russian and communist name of political detention penitentiaries and therefore
it does not suit the penitentiary space in Romania).
After the publication of Confessors behind Bars. Servants of the Church in the
Communist Prisons, I was told that the Most Reverend Nicolae Corneanu, too, had
been arrested by the political police. I wrote him and got an answer from His
Reverence (2 April 1996 and the answer no. 1618 from 9 April 1996) asking us not to
make "a big fuss over past things... representing a personal matter..." He had been
interrogated by Securitate chiefs Ambrus and Mois from Timisoara. His Reverence was
to do it later.
A useful degree paper is the one of the priest Gabriel Valeriu Basa (Sibiu) who,
besides the common data, also presented a list of 119 persons including 67
detainees and 52 persons who had died in prison.
Our databank stores the lists of persons purged from the ecclesiastical
institutions over 1945-1948 who were not included in the volume; and also the list
of church personnel from Bessarabia who were deported to Romania during the 1940
Soviet occupation, with the dioceses where they were sent (Victor Besliu), which
was not introduced in the volume in order to be subjected to a selection of the
persons later detained by the communist regime in Romania.
Both lists contain hundreds of names of people who suffered the disciplines of this
totalitarian regime. A similar list is being drawn up by the review Memoria.
As is known, many names are mentioned in the books, articles or recorded memoirs of
the former political prisoners, direct witnesses of the communist repression but,
unfortunately, they are not accompanied by sufficient identification elements.
Therefore there are several instance of anonymous reference to priests who could be
given their due place in a subsequent edition. Likewise, the study of the political
police's files may also hold surprises related to the darker aspects of these
people who should have been spared the crudest suffering, the one of losing their
dignity following the inquiries of the Securitate during the terrifying re-
education or during detention. Let us not forget, however, to wonder, in the first
place and always, who unleashed the repression, who needed to soil the human
dignity and especially the dignity of those who served the churches and the faith
in God, with their heroism and their failures. Let us not forget that revolutions
presuppose, in their essence, the satanic idea of "rebellion" and therefore,
whatever the way they presented or concealed their "intellectual," "social" or
"moral" goals, they meant from the very beginning to deal blows to the Church, the
one of Christ in particular, even when it made proof of dogmatic intransigence or
tolerance understood as a foible of the love for one's fellow beings.
Fernand Lafargue, a member of the Club de l'Horloge, says: "Socialism therefore
appears today as the spearhead of this rebellion against God and against the
�status quo� and we see better why, in all the countries of the socialist bloc, the
foremost concern of the power has been to eradicate any religion, and especially
the Christian religion (...) religious persecution is not accidental, but
fundamental, determining and sanctioning the ((revolutionary rebuilding of the
status quo�. "
This explains, in broad lines, the unparalleled repression enforced by the
communist-totalitarian revolutions. Can the number of the Inquisition's victims,
approx. 30 thousand dead, compare with the 40 thousand priests during the Leninist
period and another 5,000 under Stalin? With the number of priests victimized by the
Spanish revolution or during the French revolution? Or with the aggregate number of
priests assassinated between 1917 and 1980, 200 thousand persons plus the 500
thousand who were imprisoned or deported (Iakovlev's report, 1995)?
In communist Romania, the "atheist revolution" certainly did not reach such a
paroxysmal point, although I would consider comparing the crimes as cynical were
this not meant to illustrate a study on the repression the ecclesiastical world was
subjected to. Still we found it very difficult to assess the ones who should have
been (and are) recorded in the hand-written, typed or computerized databases of
archives. But how can one evaluate the ones who were reported missing (even after
they had been released), the ones shot during the actions of the anticommunist
resistance in the mountains or as supporters, the ones who were deported, purged or
sent into retirement for no reason other that they had not manifested their support
for the communist regime, or those who died in doubtful circumstances. And that,
beyond the faked reasons or motives elicited under duress. The charges were:
political activity, espionage, sabotage, sedition, secret catechization, aiding the
fugitives or their families. The memoirs of the former detainees often contain
simple names, with no additional data. For instance, in his Camp Paper, Caracal,
1945, Onisifor Ghibu mentions a great many priests but the work also contains such
mentions as "Father Mihale" at p. 103, "the monk Eftimie from the Hermitage in
Neamt" at p. 96 and so on. From the same book it emerges that in 1945, when the
camp at Caracal was set up, about 90 priests were interned there (mostly Orthodox
but also of other confessions).
I know a brilliant doctor, the son of a priest, who would not have had any chance
to go to university and was therefore adopted by a miner (an inspired one) until he
finished medical school. And there were many others in this situation, even if they
had not been born to a priest's family. I must mention here the four hermits from
the Cetatuia Hermitage at Campulung who in August 1947 had taken us in; the
"nameless" priest who gave us shelter in his home at the Patriarchate, after the
arrests of 15 May 1948; or the vicar who lived in Mihai Bravu Street, again in June
1948; or the vicar at the Delea Veche Church in Bucharest: the "resistant" priests
at the Antim Monastery and in the Rugul Aprins (The Burning Bush) group.
We should pay a pious homage also to the former young and mature political
detainees who, after their release from prison, took holy orders or became monks:
Lucian Avramescu, Pavel Tegzcs, Nicu (Nicolae) Patrascu.

COSMOVICI, HORIA; b. 1909 at Tureatca (?): Greek-Catholic priest. An apprentice of

Monsignor Ghika; arrested six times, the last time in 1948 when he was sentenced to
25 years of hard labour: places of detention: Jilava, Aiud, Periprava, Ocnele Mari,
Gherla, Margineni; freed after he was granted a pardon in 1964.
MARACINE, PAUL; b. 03.03.1928 Bucharest; Orthodox priest. Served at the St. Vasile
Church in Bucharest; arrested between 25.05.1949 and 24.04.1956; detention place:
Aiud.
STEINHARDT, NICOLAE; m.n. NICOLAE OF ROHIA; b. 12.07.1912, com. Pantelimon,
Bucharest; d. 29.03.1989; Orthodox monk. Intellectual Jew converted to
Christianity; Graduated from the faculties of Law and Letters and Philosophy in
Bucharest; doctor of constitutional law; arrested on 04.01.1960 with the batch of
"Intellectuals" (C. Noica, Al. Paleologu, V. Voiculescu, a/o.); sentenced on
05.03.1960 to 13 years in jail; detention places: Malmaison, Jilava (where on
15.03.1960 he converted to Orthodoxy, being baptized by Father Mina Dobzeu),
Gherla; released in August 1964; on 16.08.1980 he became a monk at the Rohia
Monastery, Cluj county; he died en route to Bucharest.
VOICESCU, CONSTANTIN; b. 05.08.1924 m Bucharest; d. 08.10.1997; Orthodox priest.
Served at the Bucharest Theological Institute; arrested in 1949; reason; sedition;
sentenced by the Bucharest Military Court, under sentence no. 538/1949, to 4 years
in prison; detention place: Jilava; arrested again in 1958 under the same charges;
sentenced by the Bucharest Military Court, under sentence no. 844/1959, to forced
labour for life; detention place: Aiud. Nc. Geography undergraduate in 1949;
Between 1950 and 1954 imprisoned at Tg. Ocna.
The list will certainly include many more than we could identify.
In Russia, immediately after the 1917 revolution, repression was unleashed against
the Church (the church and state separated and atheism was declared the main
ideological support). In 192214 the Bolshevik state embarked on seizing the huge
wealth of the church and punishing the priests for their resistance. Thus, in that
year, the communists executed over 8000 servants of the Church, at head with
Metropolitan Beniamin; also they commissioned the first anti-religious publishing
house and organized the first wide-scope carnivals designed to ridicule the
Christian rituals.
In Romania, the action of officializing the camps for political detainees began as
early as 1944 in each county. Thus there were camps at Slobozia Veche, Ciurel-
Bucharest, Timisul de Sus - for monks, Timisul de Jos - for nuns, Lugoj, Pitesti
and Vulcan for members of the Iron Guard (in February 1945 there were as many as
4600 inmates at Targu Jiu), with a total of approx. 10,200 detainees15. In fact at
that time there were 36 numbered camps and much more detainees. Even Radio London
commented (21 Nov. 1944) that Romania "failed to comply satisfactorily with the
terms of the armistice".
Interesting information can be found in Gheorghe Onisoru's article The Middle Class
and the Road to Socialism (about the purges in the state administration, the black
lists, etc.)16. Actually, several relevant studies were written by N. Hurjui, G.
Dragulin, S. Stolojan, I. Ploscaru, and M. Berindei a/o.
The older camps were overcrowded with political prisoners (Targu Jiu was one such
case). At the same time, commissions were created to draw up lists of Iron
Guardists (including priests) and of ethnic Germans and Hungarians, purges were
initiated and the political police made arrests (ca.8293 in- 1944) and instituted
surveillance (measures ordered by Soviet General Vinogradov). Moreover, there was a
tidal wave of exposures and adliesions to the new regime, determined by the fear of
deportation and imprisonment, concurrently with the start of the anticommunist
resistance.
Although on 27 Sep. 1945 the Council of Ministers had decided to close the camps,
subsequently they were reorganized. A piece of information that we could not check
indicates that a batch of 140 priests from Timisoara was detained at the Ocnele
Mari prison. After the 1947 Council of Orthodox Patriarchs (Metropolitans), held in
Moscow and attended by delegates from the socialist countries, an "Appeal" was
launched, urging "antifascist struggle and struggle against the Vatican." Patriarch
Nicodim withdrew at the Neamt Monastery.
The Church was affected by Decree no. 166 of 1947 on the "deposition" of 17
Orthodox hierarchs - metropolitans and bishops or vicars - listed below.
The List of Deposed Orthodox Metropolitans
CRIVEANU, GRIGORIE; m.n. NIFON; b. 20.02.1889 at Slatioara, Olt County; d.
14.06.1970 in Bucharest; Orthodox metropolitan bishop. Studies at the Central
Seminary (1902-1910) and at the Faculty of Theology of Montpellier and Paris (1924-
1928); a priest at Lucaci church (1916-1922) and Popa Soare church (1922-1924) in
Bucharest; professor and director at the "Nifon" Seminary of Bucharest (1924-1928);
became a monk at the Cernica Monastery, under the name Nifon; Archimandrite in
1928; Arch-dean at the Ramnicului Bishopric, with the title "Craioveanul" (1929-
1933); elected Bishop of Husi on 19.10.1933 and Metropolitan Bishop of Oltenia on
30.11.1939; forced to retire on 20.04.1945 (aged fifty-six).
ENACHESCU, IOAN; m.n. EFREM; b. 21.05.1893 Zavoieni, com. Maciuca, Valcea County;
d. 05.12.1968 at the Cernica Monastery; metropolitan. In 1908 he enters the
Frasinei Monastery as a brother; in 1910 he becomes a monk, by the name of Efrem,
at the Stanisoara Monastery and then he moves to Cozia Monastery where he is
ordained a deacon monk and priest monk; after graduation from the Central seminary
in Bucharest (1912-1920), he serves at the St. Nicolae Seminary in Ramnicu Valcea
(1921-1923); superior of the Cozia Monastery (1922-1928); director of the Church
Readers School at Cozia (1925-1928); ordained an archimandrite in 1923; he attends
the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest (1923-1928) and specialized courses at
Montpellier, France (1928-1930); a professor and director of the Seminary in
Ramnicu Valcea (1930-1933) and exarch of the monasteries belonging to the Bishopric
of Ramnic (1930-1936), then a priest at the patriarchal cathedral and exarch of the
monasteries in the Archbishopric of Bucharest (1936-1938); in February 1938 he is
elected a vicar bishop with the title of Tighineanul and is appointed an
archbishop's deputy at Chisinau (1938-1943); on 12.01.1944 he is elected Archbishop
of Chisinau and Metropolitan of Bessarabia but a few months later he is forced to
seek refuge; he serves as a confessor at the boarding house of the theological
seminary in Bucharest (1947-1948) and superior of the Cernica Monastery until his
retirement in 1952. Nc. Rounded up from Cernica; died in prison.
LAZARESCU, VASILE; b. 01.01.1894 Comesti, Timis County; d. 21.02.1969;
metropolitan. After graduation from high school in Timisoara and from the Faculty
of Theology in Cernauti, and after the doctor's degree obtained in 1919, he took
courses of pedagogy and philosophy at the Universities of Bucharest and Vienna; he
taught dogmatics, apologetics and morals at the Theological Institute in Sibiu
(1920-1924) and at the Theological Academy in Oradea (1924-1933); an editor for the
diocesan journal Legea Romaneasca issued in Oradea (1925-1931); he became a monk in
1928; ordained archimandrite (1929); elected bishop of Caransebes on 21.10.1933;
consecrated as bishop on 21.12.1933; enthroned on 15.04.1934; elected bishop of
Timisoara on 12.06.1940; enthroned on 25.03.1941; in 1947 he became Archbishop of
Timisoara and Metropolitan of Banat; upon the request of the communist authorities,
he was sent into retirement on 18.12.1961 at the Cernica Monastery, which is also
where de died; the reason for his forced retirement was that he had helped the
families of some imprisoned priests; he was buried in the Cathedral in Timisoara.
As a hierarch, he insisted for the reopening of certain monasteries in Banat
(Saraca, Partos, Sf. Hie de la Izvor, Lipova, Cebza), he supervised the building of
the Cathedral in Timisoara (consecrated on 06.10.1946), the activity of the
Theological Academies in Caransebes and Oradea (the latter sought refuge in
Timisoara after 30.08.1940), as well as the diocesan bulletins Foaia Diocezana
(Caransebes), Biserica Banateana (Timisoara) and the reviews Duh si Adevar,
Mitropolia Banatului, Calendarul Eparhial etc.
LEU, GHEORGHE; m.n. GRIGORIE; b. 02.05.1881 in Tutcani com., Vaslui County; d.
01.03.1949; bishop. After graduating from the Secondary Seminary in Roman and from
the Superior Seminary in Iasi (1897-1901), he was ordained priest for Oancea
parish, Galati County, where he served between 1904 and 1910, during which time he
also attended the courses of the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest (1906-1910); took
his diploma in Theology, installed confessor at the Central Seminary in Bucharest
(1910-1916), then as army priest (1916-1918), director of the Seminar}' in Ismail
(1918-1924); in 1924, a widower already, installed bishop-vicar of the
Archbishopric of Iasi, with the title of "Botosaneanul"; on 30.04.1936 installed
bishop of Arges (07.06.1936); installed bishop of Husi on 11.06.1940 (18.07.1940);
served in Husi until 05.02.1949, when the Communist authorities forced him to
retire; in order to find reasons to make him retire, the authorities invalidated
his eparchy, living him without an office (The Eparchy of Husi was united to the
Bishopric of Roman, into one eparchy, as the Bishopric of Roman and Husi; he had to
take residence at Sf. Apostoli Petra si Pavel monastery in Husi (former cathedral
and residence of the Bishopric of Husi, now turned into a monastery), where he died
(allegedly poisoned), after a heart-attack brought about by his grief, to which
added his worry about his son, priest Vasile Leu, detained in Communist prisons.
"Left without an eparchy, because of the new administrative canonic organization of
the Romanian Orthodox Church, he asked to be dismissed and given his retirement
rights; taking into account the recommendations of the Sf. Sinod appeal, Grigore
Leu took residence at the Sf. Apostoli Petru si Pavel monastery to be set in Husi,
of the former Bishopric Cathedral, including the buildings and the households
around. The director of the authorities within the ministry pledged to fulfill the
regulations of this decision."; at Jilava: "Doctor Voiculescu and Bishop Leu
(weakened, walking in crutches, dressed up in shepherd's clothes) are thoroughly
interrogated by the guards, who are probably very bored. They are both humiliated
and scorned at, insulted, cursed and defiled."
MIHALCESCU, IOAN; m.n. IRINEU; b. 24.04.1874 com. Valea Viei, Buzau County; d.
03.04.1948; metropolitan. After secondary school in Buzau (1887-1889), the Buzau
Seminary (1889-1891), he attended the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy in Berlin
and Leipzig (1901-1904) and took a Ph.D. in philosophy in Leipzig (13.06.1903); he
served as: an assistant professor of Greek at the Central Seminary (1894-1900),
secretary of the Theological Boarding School in Bucharest (1900-1901), agrege
(1904) and professor (1908) at the Chair of Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology of the
Bucharest Faculty of Theology (until 1939); dean of the Bucharest Faculty of
Theology (1927-1929 and 1933-1936); dean of the Faculty of Theology in Chisinau
(1926-1927); priest starting 1923; vicar bishop of the Bucharest Archbishopric
having the title of Targovisteanul (1936); deputy bishop of Ramnic with the title
Craioveanul (1938-1939); deputy Metropolitan of Oltenia (1939) and Metropolitan of
Moldavia (elected on 29.11.1939 and enthroned on 17.12.1939); he shepherded until
16.08.1947, when he retired from his office; exile at the Neamt Monastery;
exterminated in 1948 in unclear circumstances, his death occurring on 03.04.1948 at
the Agapia Monastery; he published valuable studies of dogmatics, apologetics, the
history of religions, as well as translations, being considered his time's greatest
Romanian theologian; he participated in anticommunist meetings abroad, where he
made Orthodoxy known in the Catholic and Protestant milieus of the West.
PUIU, VICTOR: m.n. VISARION; b. 27.02.1879 Pascani, Iasi County; d. 10.08.1964 in
Paris; metropolitan. Studies at the Seminaries in Roman (1893-1896) and Veniamin in
Iasi (1896-1900), at the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest (1900-1904) and at the
Clerical Academy in Kiev (1907-1908); tonsured into monasticism in Roman (1905) and
ordained a deacon monk for the Episcopal Cathedral in Roman (1905-1908); ordained
as priest monk and archimandrite (1909) and appointed administrative vicar of the
Lower Danube Bishopric and director of the St. Andrei Seminary in Galati (1909-
1918), then director of the Seminary in Chisinau (1908) and exarch of the
monasteries in Bessarabia (1918); he served as Bishop of Arges (17.03.1921-1923),
Hotin, with his seat at Balti (1923-1935), Metropolitan of Bukovina (1935-1940) and
of Trans-Dniester, with his seat in Odessa (1942-1943); in July 1944 he left for
Zagreb as Patriarch Nicodim's envoy , to attend the ordaining of a bishop for the
Croatian Orthodox Church; after 23.08.1944, as he could not return to Romania, he
sought refuge in the West (Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and from September 1949 in
France); on 21.02.1946 a People's Court sentenced him to death in absentia; under
pressure from the communist authorities, the Holy Synod unfrocked him on
28.02.1950; rehabilitated on 25.09.1990; after 1949 he set up in France an Orthodox
Bishopric with its seat at the Romanian Church in Paris; he headed this diocese
until 1958 when he retired at Viels-Maison, near Chateau-Thierry, Aisne, where he
died on 10.08.1964.
SIMEDREA, TEODOR; m.n. TIT; b. 04.09.1886 com. Naipu, Giurgiu County; d. 09.12.1971
Cernica; metropolitan. Studies at the Nifon Seminary, at the Bucharest Faculty of
Theology and at the Faculty of Law in Iasi, with further studies in Montpellier and
Paris; priest at the Prunaru parish, Teleonnan County, then at Blejesti, Vlasca
County and at Movila Peris, Ilfov County (1907-1916); military confessor (1916-
1920); priest at the St. Nicolae Tabacu Church in Bucharest (1921-1923); director
of the Holy Synod's Chancellery and minister at the Metropolitan Cathedral in
Bucharest (1923-1925); he became a monk at Cernica, in 1924, his monachal name
being Tit and he was elected vicar bishop of the Bucharest Archbishopric, with the
title Targovisteanul (1926-1935); director of the Biblical Institute's Printing
House; director and professor of liturgies at the Religious Music Academy;
editorial secretary with the review Biserica Ortodoxa Romana: participant in
several conferences abroad: Lausanne (1927), Sofia (1929), Constantinople (1929),
Vatoped (1930); on 11.1-2.1935 he was elected Bishop of Hotin, with his seat at
Balti, and on 13.06.1940 he was elected Metropolitan of Bukovina with headquarters
in Cernauti (enthroned on 25.03.1941); he retired from office on 31.06.1945, as he
expected to be deposed; as a retiree he was sent to the Darvari Hermitage in
Bucharest, and in 1959 to Cernica; he published valuable works on the Romanian
culture, including as editor, on the beginnings of monasticism in this country, and
many theology studies and articles, speeches, pastorals, reviews, notes; he died on
09.12.1971 at Cemica.
The List of Deposed Orthodox Bishops and Vicars
ANTAL, DUMITRU; m.n. EMILIAN; b. 20.10.1894 Toplita, Harghita County; d.
15.06.1971; vicar bishop. Studies at high schools in Brasov and Nasaud (1905-1913)
and then at the Theological Institute in Sibiu (1913-1916) and at the Philosophy
Department of the Budapest University (1916-1918); deacon at the Metropolitan
cathedral in Sibiu (1921-1924); priest and archpriest at Reghin (1924-1927);
diocesan inspector in Cluj (1927-1933); priest at the Bradu Boteanu Church in
Bucharest (1933-1938) and general inspector in the Ministry of Cults (1935-1938);
tonsured as a monk at the Dragomirna Monastery, as Emilian, and consecrated as
archimandrite (1938); elected vicar bishop at the Patriarchate, with the title
Targovisteanul, on 28.10.1938 and consecrated on 06.12.1938; delegated to head the
Arges Bishopric, as deputy bishop (1941-1944), and then the ecclesiastical province
of Bukovina which in 1947 became the Archbishopric of Suceava (Feb. 1945-Sep.
1948); after 1948 he was removed from this office and appointed professor at the
Theological Seminary at the Neamt Monastery (1949-1950), superior at the Cozia
Monastery and at the Toplita Monastery in Harghita County, where he died on
15.06.1971; he published various studies and articles in Telegrafid Roman and
Revista Teologica of Sibiu, in Renasterea in Cluj and in Buletinul Eparhiei
Argesului.
CIOPRON, PETRU; m.n. PARTENIE; b. 30.09.1986 com. Paltinis, Botosani County; d.
28.07.1980; bishop. After graduation from the Church Readers School in Iasi, he was
called up for military service; he fought in World War I and was wounded at Oituz;
at the end of the war he became a monk at Slatina Monastery, his monachal name
being Partenie; he attended the Veniamin Costache Seminary in Iasi (1922-1929) and
the Faculty of Theology in Cernauti (1929-1933), where he took his doctor's degree
in 1935; while he studied he was a deacon monk and priest monk at the Metropolitan
Cathedral in Iasi and after graduation he was an archimandrite, exarch of the
monasteries within the Archbishopric of Iasi and he taught religion in Iasi; on
17.06.1937 he was appointed bishop with the Army, with his seat in Alba Iulia, and
he served in this capacity until 1948; between 1941 and 1944 he was a deputy bishop
at Balti (Bessarabia); after 1948, when the Bishopric of the Army was dissolved, he
was left without a diocese and served as a teacher and director of the Monachal
Seminary at the Neamt Monastery (1948-1950) and as a superior of the St. loan eel
Nou Monastery of Suceava (1950-1961); in December 1961 he was appointed a deputy
bishop of Roman and Husi, and on 18.02.1962 he was elected bishop of that diocese,
where he functioned until 01.01.1978 when, falling ill, he retired at the Varatec
Monastery, where he later died; he published studies and articles in the paper
Viata Monahala of Iasi, which was issued with his support, and in Anna Cuvantului,
the review of the Army Bishopric.
DINCA, ALEXANDRU; m.n. ATANASIE; b. 22.12.1896 in com. Cernica, Ilfov County; d.
06.01.1973; Orthodox archbishop-dean. Graduated the School for church cantors of
Bucharest (1911-1914); a cantor at Olari and Sf. Vineri churches in Bucharest;
became a monk at Tismana Monastery (1915); further studies at the "Nifon" Seminary
and the Faculty of Theology of Bucharest, graduating in 1934; while a student,
serves as : deacon at the Ramnic Bishopric (1915-1916), military father confessor
at the hospital in Iasi (1916-1918), priest at Campurelu, Giurgiu County and
Artari, Ialomita County (1918-1923), priest at the Episcopal Cathedral of Constanta
(1923-1924), father confessor at the "Nifon" Seminary, teacher at the School for
Church Cantors of Bucharest (1924-1928), exarch of the monasteries in Constanta
County, teacher and director of the School for Church Cantors of Constanta (1928-
1931), Father Superior of the Ghighiu and Caldarusani Monasteries, exarch of the
monasteries of the Bucharest Archbishopric (1931-1943); on 01.11.1943, elected
Patriarchal Archbishop-Dean, with the title "Barladeanul"; between 21.04.1945-
11.03.1948, acting bishop of the Ramnic Bishopric; after 01.04.1948, dismissed from
this office and appointed for a few years Father Superior to Domnita Balasa church
in Bucharest, and church music professor at the Monachal Seminary of Neamt
Monastery; retired in 1956 to Caldarusani Monastery for the rest of his life.
MOGLAN, [...]; m.n. VALERIE; b. 17.05.1878, Calugareni, Neamt county; Vicar-Bishop
of the Bishopric of Moldavia and Suceava. He went to elementary school and junior
high-school in Piatra Neamt; after his military service he became a monk at the
Neamt Monastery on 16. 05. 1902, then he was ordained hierodeacon on 19.01.1903 and
hieromonach on 25.03.1904, then he was called by the Metropolitan Bishopric and
served there in various positions; under Metropolitan Bishop Pimen he was elected
Father Superior of the Neamt Monastery; after 1912 he left for Russia, where he
studied theology at Kazan and Moscow; he came back and his studies were recognized
by the University of Cernauti. He returned to Neamt as Father Superior and, shortly
afterwards he left for France, then for Canada; he returned in 1927 as Father
Superior of the Neamt Monastery; on 15.06.1936 he was appointed vicar and in 1938
he was promoted to the rank of Vicar-Bishop and oecumen of the St. Spiridon church;
when the totalitarian regime was established in Romania, the Vicar-Bishop Moglan
was dismissed and sent into retirement to the monastery; he died on 13. 08. 1949,
and buried in the cemetery of St. loan Bogoslov at the Neamt Monastery.
MORUSCA, POMPEI; m.n. POLICARP; b. 20.03.1883 Cristesti-Dealul Geoagiului, Alba
County; d. 26.10.1958 Alba Iulia; bishop. Having graduated from high school in Alba
Iulia and Blaj, he enrolled at the Theological Institute in Sibiu (1902-1905); he
served as a teacher at confessional primary schools at Sebes-Alba, Ludos-Sibiu and
Paclisa-Alba (1905-1908), as priest at Seica-Mare, Sibiu County (1908-1919),
military confessor (1917-1918), adviser at the Diocesan Centre of Cluj (1919-1920),
confessor at the Theological Institute in Sibiu (1920-1921) and editor with the
Theological Review of Sibiu (1921-1922); in 1925 he was tonsured , received the
name of Policarp and was appointed superior of the Hodos-Bodrog Monastery (1925-
1935); in 1926 he was consecrated as archimandrite; on 24.01.1935 he was elected
bishop for the Romanians in America (ordained as bishop on 24.03.1935 and enthroned
in Detroit on 04.07.1935); he organized the diocese (with 6 deaneries, 44 parishes,
62 chapters, 43 churches and 34 priests); he started publication of the diocesan
gazette Solia and of the Calendarul eparhial Solia, which have been published up to
this day; he laid the foundations of the Vatra Romaneasca diocesan centre, attached
to which were a farm, a retirement home and a monastery; in 1939 he returned to
Romania to attend the meetings of the Holy Synod; he could not go back to his
diocese in America; up to 1948 he served as: deputy bishop of Cetatea Alba-Ismail,
Bessarabia (1941-1944), director of the Theological Institute in Bucharest (1944-
1945) and as deputy bishop of Maramures, with his seat at Sighet (1945-1946); in
1948 he retired and withdrew at the St. loan Botezatorul Monastery in Alba Iulia,
the superior of which he was between 1955 and 1958; "The head of the Romanian
Orthodox Diocese of America and the Western States; he is removed from the position
he holds as of the date of publication of the present decree in M.O."
PETROVICI, COSMA; b. 11.01.1873 Braila; d. 16.12.1948 Galati; bishop. Graduated
from the Theological Seminary of Galati (1888-1892) and of Iasi (1892-1896);
attended the Faculty of Theology m Cernauti (1896-1900); deacon (1897); priest and
archpriest at Dorohoi (1902-1913); he taught religion at the school of Pomarla
(1913-1917); having been widowed, in 1923 he was elected a vicar bishop at the Iasi
Archbishopric, receiving the title of Botoseneanul, and on 25.06.1924 he was
elected bishop of the Lower Danube (enthroned on 19.07.1924); he was deposed in
August 1947 and forced to go into retirement.
POPOVICIU, NICOLAE; b. 29.01.1903 Biertan-Sibiu; d. 20.10.1960 Biertan; bishop.
High school at Dumbraveni; normal school in Sibiu, with validation exam and
graduation diploma from the Andrei Saguna High School in Brasov (1923); the
Theological Academy of Sibiu (1923-1927), with validation exam at the Faculty of
Theology in Cernauti, which also grants him his doctor's degree in 1934;
specialization at the Divinity School in Athens (1927-1928) and at the Faculties of
Philosophy of Munich (1928-1930), Tubingen, Leipzig and Breslau (1930-1932); a
professor of dogmatics and apologetics at the Theological Academy in Sibiu (1932-
1936); deacon (1929) and priest (1934); elected Bishop of Oradea on 26.04.1936;
between 1940 and 1944 he found refuge at Beius; forced to retire on 05.10.1950;
house arrest at the Cheia Monastery until 1960; he died on 20.10.1960, at Biertan
(where his family had brought him, seriously ill, from the Cheia Monastery); re-
interred on 23.08.1992 in the cathedral of Oradea.
SCOROBET, TRANDAFIR; m.n. TEODOR; b. 14.01.1883 Streza Cartisoara -Fagaras; d.
25.03.1967 Sibiu; vicar bishop. He graduated from the High School of Sibiu and from
the Andrei Saguna High School in Brasov, from the Theological Institute in Sibiu
(1902-1905); training courses as a teacher of Romanian and English at the
University of Cluj (1919); elementary school teacher at Rasinari, Sibiu County
(1905-1906); priest at the Romanian parishes in America (1906-1909) and at the
parish of Rosia-Sibiu (1909-1919); he was imprisoned by the Hungarian authorities
in Cluj, Oradea and Zambor between 1916 and 1918; archpriest (1922); teacher of
Romanian and English at the Gheorghe Lazar High School in Sibiu (1920-1922);
adviser at the Archbishopric of Sibiu (1922-1941); he became a monk in 1940 and was
appointed administrative vicar of Sibiu in 1941, then he was elected vicar bishop
of the Archbishopric of Sibiu, bearing the title of Rasinareanul (1946); he
published studies and articles in church magazines; forced to retire in 1948; he
died in Sibiu.
SERPE, PAVEL; b. 18.04.1897 com. Pastraveni, village of Radeni, Neamt County; vicar
bishop. He attended the Veniamin Seminary in Iasi (1911-1920), the Faculty of
Theology of Cernauti (1920-1924) and the Educational University Seminary of
Bucharest (1925); ordained deacon in 1925 for the Episcopal cathedral in Constanta;
he served as deacon also at the Sf. Apostoli Church and as a confessor at the
Theological Seminary in Constanta (1925-1927); ordained priest in 1927; he served
as a missionary at the Belvedere parish in the capital-city (until 1947) and as
adviser at the Archbishopric of Bucharest (1945-1947); tonsured at the Neamt
Monastery on 22.07.1947; consecrated as archimandrite on 23.07.1947; elected vicar
bishop of the Bucharest Archbishopric, being given the title of Ploiesteanul, on
02.07.1947; ordained bishop on 31.08.1947; after 1948 he was forced to retire at
the Curtea de Arges Monastery where for several years he was the superior and where
he died on 18.04.1978; buried in the crypt in the basement of the Belvedere Church
in the capital-city, where he had served for two decades as a missionary priest.
TRITEANU, LAZAR; m.n. LUCIAN; b. 15.08.1872 Feldioara-Razboieni, Alba County;
bishop. Having finished high school in Blaj and Sibiu (1895), he attended the
Theological Institute in Sibiu (1895-1898) and the Faculty of Philosophy of the
Budapest university (1898-1901); school adviser (1901-1910) and adviser to the
Archbishopric of Sibiu (1910-1923); ordained deacon and priest in 1910: he
struggled in defense of the Romanian confessional schools in Transylvania, against
the attempts to Hungarianize them; in autumn 1922 he was elected vicar bishop of
the Bishopric of Ramnic, with the title Craioveanul; in January 1923 he was
tonsured into monasticism as Lucian, but on 29.03.1923 the Holy Synod elected him
Bishop of Roman (consecrated on 6 May and enthroned on 10.06.1923); he held that
position until August 1947 when the authorities sent him into retirement; he died
on 06.09.1953 in Roman.
Here is a list of Orthodox priests who took part in the struggles waged in the
mountains against the political police: Nicolae Andreescu, Ion Constantinescu, Ion
David, Ion Dragoi, Apostol Dumitru, Ion Jaflea, Evghenie Hulea, Dumitru Mihailescu.
Participants in armed actions and peasant resistance: Ion Colita, Hederegiu, Vasile
Stoian, Gheorghe Ungurelu.
Priests who died in prison or during investigations: Gh. Serban - com. Corlan,
Constanta, shot dead on Easter Day in 1952 at Baia Sprie; Puiu Dumitrescu-Lopatari;
Soceanu of Ploiesti; Petre Focseneanu, again from Ploiesti.
It is estimated that ca. 250 Orthodox priests died in prison and in battles (Source
Ionitoiu).
As far as the Most Reverend Nicolae Corneanu is concerned, according to what he
stated publicly (Romania lihera of 10.03.1997, p. 11), he had been involved in the
unfrocking of the following priests: Avramescu, George Dumitrescu Viorel, Emil
Ambnis Cernat, Liviu Negoita and Ionel Vinchici, whom he asked for forgiveness;
these priests officially sided with the priest Dumitreasa-Calciu, with the Greek-
Catholic Church and the "Oastea Domnului" (The Army of the Lord); under pressure
from the political police, some of them were put on trial or expelled.
In July 1947, a report of the Romanian counterespionage showed that priests of the
various denominations who had fled abroad or stayed in the country participated
in . the Romanian Resistance Movement. The following are mentioned: in Paris
-parish priest Vasile Boldeanu, with articles in La Roumanie Independante, which
was subsidized by diplomats who had chosen to remain abroad and which was "headed
by the priests Neamtu Martin, Ogreanu, Teofil Ionescu, a/o;" in Italy "there is an
Orthodox group including several devotees of Maniu like: (...) priest Tautu, Puiu
Cucu, Ion Pop and other priests;" in Rome, Metropolitan Visarion Puiu; in Germany
the priest Branzeu; in the US the priests Truta, Oprean and Moldovan, Ion Spataru,
Gh. Anagnostache who contributed to various magazines such as Liimina and Solia;
the head of the Orthodox Church in Paris, archimandrite Teofil Ionescu (Cartea alba
a securitatii, 23 august 1944 - 30 august 1948, volume I, the Romanian Intelligence
Service, 1997, pp.378-381). In the US it was Bishop Valerian Trifa who was deposed
and died in exile in Portugal.
Mention should be made also of the Memorandum of the Romanian Uniate Bishops of 29
March 1948 related to the draft Constitution (ibidem, pp.440-444).
The Uniate (Greek-Catholic) Church was severely affected - banned in fact -by the
law of 01.11.1948, as well as by the decrees on the closing of confessional
schools, the retirement of hierarchs (Decree no. 166/1947 on deposing the bishops,
the one of 31.03.1948 and Decree no.1777/1948 on restricting the monastic and
missionary activity, complemented by Decree no. 410 of December 1948 and by the law
on the general regime of religious cults).
Moreover, the Roman-Catholic Church was left with 2 bishops out of 8 and its
activities were drastically limited (a unilateral breach of the Concordat with the
Vatican), which forced it to make certain compromises.
As Bishop loan Ploscaru shows, at Sighet alone were imprisoned 9 Greek-Catholic
bishops and a metropolitan, 3 Roman-Catholic bishops. 5 Catholic priests and 25
Greek-Catholic ones. Four Uniate priests from Lugoj were detained at the Canal
camp. Many of them died or were held in isolation at monasteries specially set
aside for this purpose.
Other authors (Serban Milcoveanu or C. Ionitoiu) state that between 1000 and 1400
Greek-Catholic and Roman-Catholic hierarchs and priests were arrested and many were
killed.
The first form at our disposal and even the final form of Confessors behind Bars.
Servants of the Church in the Communist Prisons recorded a number of about 45
Roman-Catholics and 60 Greek-Catholics.
The text of State Decree no. 410 (which complemented the one of 04.08.1948),
reproduced here below, provides an image of who actually decided on the fate of
denominations and monasticism:
The Presidium of the Grand National Assembly of the People's Republic of Romania
decrees:
Art. 1 - Decree 177 of 4 August 1948, on the general regime of religious cults is
altered as follows:
After art. 7 comes art. 71 with the following content:
Art. 71 -Monasticism can function only in the authorized monasteries of the legally
recognized cults. Functioning authorization for monasteries is issued by the
Department of Cults.
Graduates from the schools training clergy can go into monasticism at any age,
provided they fulfilled military service.
Other persons can be admitted into monasticism only if they have reached the age of
55 for men and 50 for women, if they give up the salary or the State pension, if
they are single and if they do not have obligations already established by the
Family Code.
In cases when the exercise of the religion requires it, the Department of Cults
will authorize certain monks to hold church positions and to receive due salary.
The above provisions apply to existing monasteries and hermitages.
The Chairman of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly
I.Gh. Maurer
The Secretary of the Presidium of the Grand National Assembly
Gh. Stoica
(Bucharest, 28 October 1959, no. 410)
In fact, as the documents in the White Book of the Political Police attest, the
Politburo of the RCP was directly in charge of the "religious police", through the
one entrusted with this matter, Vasile Luca. Instances of imprisonment, of
repression of the religious freedoms, and destruction of the church heritage
further occurred until 1989 (though imprisonment was resorted to less frequently)
but the demolition of church monuments assumed a wider scope, the communist
authorities ignoring any insistence of the religious and intellectual community.
The priest Calciu-Dumitreasa paid with hard years in jail for his opposition to the
demolition of Enei Church.
25 March 1949
Minutes of the working meeting of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
leadership establishing the tasks of the Securitate in the Catholic matter
In attendance were comrade minister Teohari Georgescu, comrade It.-gen. Pintilie
Gheorghe, director general of the People's_Securitate comrade major general
Nicolschi Alexandru and comrade major general Mazuru Vladimir, both of them deputy
directors at the General Directorate of the People'sSecuritate; The agenda included
the following problems:
1.Defining the position versus the Catholic problem in general;
2. The Catholic problem in Moldavia;
3. Defining the position on the question of monasteries.
Following the analysis made by minister Teohari Georgescu, it emerged that the
Catholic problem becomes more acute with every passing day, because of the policy
conducted by Catholic priests and monks belonging to various orders, who are agents
of the Pope and of the Anglo-American imperialism. Moreover, the conclusion was
reached that monasteries were a hotbed breeding plots, sedition and instigation
against the popular democracy regime.
After debates, the collective found the following measures were necessary:
1.Monks and nuns shall not be allowed to walk around in the rural environment, that
is, missionarism should be banned in tillages and towns;
2.Priests shall not be issued authorizations to collect money for the building of
churches or for other purposes;
3. Measures shall be taken against Roman-Catholic monasteries: monasteries shall be
closed down; the nuns and monks shall be concentrated in two or three nunneries and
in two or three monasteries for monks and they shall not be allowed to leave those
monasteries.
Tasks: comrade It.-gen. Pintilie Gheorghe will talk this matter over with the
minister of Cults, Stanciu Stoian, and with the Patriarch; all the material
regarding the Roman-Catholic problem shall be prepared by Tuesday, 29 March 1949;
the monasteries shall be established where all the Roman-Catholic monks can be
concentrated.
Securitate major general V. Mazuru
(A.S.R.I., Stock D, file no. 10089, p.86)

It emerges that the Church was not only contemplative but also fighting. That
explains the measures taken against monks, who actively supported the anticommunist
struggle (as this Dictionary partly attests).
Categories of persons under surveillance (who "plotted against the democratic
gains")
"The internal reaction, made up of former industrialists and landlords, elements of
the former bourgeois state apparatus, retired officers, former policemen, clerics,
members of sects, former members of the so-called historical parties, Iron
Guardists and capitalist elements from the villages."
...In 1951, 417,916 persons were under surveillance, 5401 of who were arrested for
"inimical activity."
(A.S.R.I., Stock D, file 189, p.6-7 The White Book of Securitate, p.45)
Main directions of action of the political police: "exposing the imperialist
espionage actions"
...They pursued both to obtain data and secret information on the country's defense
system and to provoke certain acts of diversion and sabotage, to the end of
determining the collapse of the internal life and creating tension in society.
Attempts were made to involve the Iron Guardist groups that were active in the
mountains in the activity of sabotage, whereas the "Iron Guardists who had sought
refuge in monasteries were used for intelligence gathering, as couriers and for
providing shelter to parachuted spies."
The counterintelligence concerns of the Securitate then extended to the
representatives of the Roman and Greek-Catholic cults, as well as those of the
religious sects, all of whom were accused of anticommu'nist propaganda and
espionage in favour of the capitalist countries.
(A.S.R.I., Stock D, file 9604, vol.4, p.144 The White Book of Securitate, p.23)
�
Prof. PAUL CARAVIA