Romanian Orthodox Clergy and Communist Opposition? What the Keston Archive Reveals by Ryan J. Voogt It is conventionally asserted that in Communist Romania, Romanian Orthodox priests and bishops did little to combat or stand up to state intrusion into church affairs. A believer looking to the priesthood to criticise atheistic propaganda, resist the demolition of churches, or speak out against the harassment or imprisonment of clergy and believers, would probably have been disappointed. The leading historian of Romania Dennis Deletant writes, ‘It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Orthodox believers were not wellserved by their leaders.’1 One Orthodox priest, however, stands out in the historiography and is often mentioned, Fr Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa,2 but many would concur with Deletant that Calciu ‘proved exceptional among Orthodox priests in his defence of Christian values’ and that ‘examples of Orthodox protest were isolated and inevitably invite comparison with the defiance of the Protestant groups.’3 This article’s focus is not the leadership of the Romanian Orthodox Church, but the priests who more readily interacted with everyday believers. The position of the bishops was unique (though certainly not wholly separate from the situation of the clergy): either a bishopric formed an integral part of the state ministry of religion, or the state was an integral part of church administration. The bishops have sometimes been viewed as outright collaborators, who had a ‘nickname’ assigned to them by the secret police, while others have had their behaviour justified on the grounds that they were Keston Newsletter No 20, 2014 playing the role of ‘double agent’, doing the minimum for the state while protecting the institution of the church. But to make such judgements would require a detailed study of the life and work of each bishop – not a simple task. Fr Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa Turning to the clergy: were there Romanian Orthodox priests who regarded the state’s treatment of religion as unacceptable and expressed their disagreement publicly? Are there aspects of Romanian Orthodoxy, such as theology or tradition, which influenced the response of clergy to state interference, and can these explain any significant differences between the actions of Orthodox clergy, as compared to those of clergy belonging to other denominations? Such questions are broad and complex enough to warrant a major study, and I do not presume to answer them satisfactorily here. Instead, I would like to suggest that, based on analysis of documents in the Keston Archive, Orthodox dissidence was more widespread than is usually assumed, but that it was not as close-knit as in other 30 denominations, due primarily to certain characteristics of the Romanian Orthodox Church’s situation and tradition. Outspoken Orthodox priests were extremely isolated and vulnerable, as compared to the clergy of other denominations. The Keston Archive has files of Romanian documents which include letters from Orthodox priests – sometimes addressed to a Romanian audience, sometimes to a Western one – as well as letters from laity in support of particular priests, and an especially large quantity of documents which relate to Fr Calciu-Dumitreasa. In general, clergy faced discipline for two main reasons: political statements or activities, and for serving with ‘exceptional’ zeal. Fr Calciu became well-known in Romania for a series of addresses given to students in 1978 which the authorities found inflammatory, and for publicly protesting against the destruction of churches in Bucharest.4 His subsequent arrest and harsh treatment also became known, leading to a group of five priests writing an open letter entitled ‘Testimony of Faith’ in 1981 to the Patriarch in support of Fr Calciu and against the church’s authoritarian treatment of its priests and its submissiveness to the state.5 All five priests – Viorel Dumitrescu, Liviu NegoiQR, Ionel Vinchici, Emeric AbruS-Cernat, and Cornel Avramescu – came from the area near TimiSoara. All but NegoiQR were exiled to the US after suffering harsh treatment. Fr Gheorghe Doru Gage, also from TimiSoara, was another active priest who talked to his parishioners about Fr Calciu. In an open letter to CeauSescu, he complained that it was impossible to lead an ‘authentic religious life’.6 He too was exiled to the US. Like Fr Gage, three of those who wrote the Keston Newsletter No 20, 2014 ‘Testimony of Faith’ – Dumitrescu, NegoiQR, and Avramescu – were young priests who shared a concern for the spiritual vitality of their communities. Dumitrescu was said to be full of ‘apostolic zeal’ and quickly entered into conflicts with the authorities. NegoiQR was also ‘animated by the spirit of authentic Christian service’ and, aware of the non-Christian practices and customs of his parish, struggled against them. An informer notified the authorities that NegoiQR had ‘reformist $ meeting with the bishop.7 Cornel Avramescu began running into TUVU TUWX and sentenced to imprisonment in 1983 (ultimately he was given a reprieve). He was accused by the church authorities of trying to create a schism within the Romanian Orthodox Church when he took a more active leadership role in a renewal movement within the church 7 Y Z accused of contacting ‘reactionary elements’ and becoming an agent of Radio Free Europe during a trip to West Germany in 1979. He suspected that this foreign trip was permitted in order to give the authorities material for spreading defamatory rumours against him and to prepare the ground for attacks on him upon his return. His true crimes were that he had promoted ‘the gathering of the believers around the church and towards raising the level of religious knowledge.’ He wrote that he had ‘used every occasion to attract everyone to Christ.’ Evidently his churches were wellhad also permitted the banned Lord's Army to meet, considering ‘their place’ to be within the church. He had also travelled about the country, meeting believers and forming relationships with them (he kept in touch even when they had left Romania). People were told to have no contact with him, while 31 an inspector called ‘Hofman’ from the Department of Cults passed on information about him to the bishop who reprimanded him. An attempt to transfer him to another area was made, but the authorities there would not accept him. Some of his parishioners ‘inundated’ their bishop with letters, to no avail. In the end, in 1985, he was exiled to the US.8 threats and blackmail, continuing the activity for which he had full legal right, he too suffered harsh treatment’10 and went abroad shortly thereafter. [tefan GavrilR bravely cut himself off from the establishment by refusing to sign the annual ‘declaration of collaboration’ because he saw the ‘diabolical policy of the state toward religion as well as of the leadership of [his] superiors in which [he] had to conduct [his] activity.’11 He also attempted to organise religious education for his parishioners and wrote letters to the Archbishop and Patriarch, condemning atheist interference in church life. Fr Stefan Gavril# with his wife Other clergy were also disciplined. Fr Radu Pamfil from the TimiS region was relocated in 1985, supposedly due to ‘occult practices’ performed during visits to former parishioners. Perhaps it was no coincidence that his problems began in April 1981 when ‘Testimony of Faith’ was written: he faced harassment, investigations, threats, surveil- & children (30 September 1970) In the Bucharest relance, and slander from his superiors. Fr Remus BiparQ was a gion Costica Maftei gained particular friend of those who wrote ‘Testimony notoriety. Transferred from Prahova in of Faith’ and was threatened with ex- 1977, he was given a new parish in the communication. He was accused of Bucharest region which had no church cooperating with the Lord's Army building. Thanks to the support of his movement and of attracting people parishioners, he worked hard to build from outside his parish in the one but faced harassment and constant Hunedoara region. Another local priest obstacles. He wrote to CeauSescu and and acquaintance of these others, Fr Radio Free Europe, and a group of his Marian [tefRnescu was also threatened parishioners wrote an open letter in his with excommunication and removed support. No longer able to endure the from his parish because of his links harassment against himself and his family, he was allowed to emigrate in with Greek-Catholics.9 1978. In the Prahova region, Fr Stefan GavrilR and Fr Leonida Pop stand out. In Two priests from IaSi are mentioned in 1977 Pop was installed in a parish in the Keston Archive: Gheorghe ZimVRlenii de Munte in Prahova: ‘The isnicul, who recorded aspects of perseyoung cleric began among other things cution in a diary and was wrongfully – to the consternation of the local au- placed in a mental hospital a number thorities – weekly lectures of religious of times until his death in 1974,12 and education for children and teenagers. Gheorghe Bistriceanu who attracted Because he did not want to give in to the attention of the authorities because Keston Newsletter No 20, 2014 32 of his work with young people and the choirs which he organised. Two days before Christmas 1979, his church was vandalised: a ladder was used to reach the icons high up on the walls – all were smashed or stolen (one still had an axe embedded in it) while the Christmas tree was ‘broken down’ and excrement placed on the altar. Local officials were assumed to have had a hand in this.13 The above examples make clear that priests came into conflict with the political and religious authorities primarily for their connections with others, whether with particular groups like the Lord’s Army, Greek-Catholics, or with other politically involved people, or even with ordinary citizens. Since many of these priests were exiled or transferred to other areas, it was clearly a goal of the authorities to isolate and prevent them from meeting other likeminded people. Deletant is correct when he claims that ‘examples of Orthodox protest were isolated.’14 But ‘isolated’ should not be confused with ‘absent’. Orthodox opposition very much existed, but it was not as close-knit as in other denominations. In 1977 six Romanian Protestant pastors and laymen wrote and broadcast a document demanding freedom of conscience and condemning the persethey, with a larger group of mainly (though not exclusively) Baptist pastors and believers, established the Comitetul CreStin Român pentru ApRrarea LibertRQii Religioase Si de ConStiinQR (the Christian Romanian Committee for the Defence of Religious Freedom and Conscience, often abbreviated as ALRC). A few Orthodox priests were also involved in the activity of ALRC, although not necessarily as members. Keston Newsletter No 20, 2014 Non-Orthodox denominations in Romania sometimes complained that the Orthodox enjoyed certain privileges and suffered much less harassment. My research indicates that there was a ‘minority mentality’ which helped to strengthen ties within the minority churches. The Reformed Church was comprised almost exclusively of ethnic Hungarians and treated as a minority group on religious and ethnic grounds. Baptists, Pentecostals, and other socalled ‘neo-Protestants’ shared an outsider status even before the Communist period, while the Greek-Catholics had always been deeply disliked by the Romanian Orthodox Church: the survival of these denominations depended very much on their cohesion. The Catholics never received official recognition from the state. The ‘minority’ status was a kind of refuge to which the Orthodox did not have recourse. Moreover, the ‘atheist’ state would sometimes promote a Romanian nationalist message which awkwardly included elements of Romanian Orthodoxy. The Patriarch and bishops were often seen in the company of government leaders, travelling abroad, or hosting dignitaries. In whom could a dissenting Orthodox priest or layperson confidently confide? How could he or she complain while enjoying such a ‘privileged’ status? Nationalist-minded Romanian leaders – although ostensibly atheist according to ideology – to some degree regarded the Romanian Orthodox Church as part of what was considered ‘Romanian’. It was even more threatening to the regime for an Orthodox priest to deviate from compliance or to speak out against the political-religious establishment, since he threatened to undermine the quid pro quo that the church and political leadership had established. By contrast, minority confessions could always be \ $ 33 were outsiders, and outsiders tended to act according to their non-Romanian characteristics. In 1986 Fr Alexandru Pop of Arad wrote about the isolation he and other Romanian Orthodox clergy felt in a letter forwarded to Keston. As a priest, he felt obliged to put himself at risk for the sake of his flock: ‘The churches and cathedrals are at capacity, youth, students, and schoolchildren come to drink of the riches of the clean source of truth’ and among them are ‘those sickened by indoctrination’. Church leaders, he wrote, did not act in accordance with the views of most priests, many of whom were kept silent by ‘terror and shock’. Along with some others like him who were born, raised, and trained under Communism, Pop wrote, ‘when we are honest we have to admit that we are overcome by a feeling of loneliness. Some are afraid that they could be left alone in the face of a wave of repression.’15 Fr Alexandru Pop thanked Fr Calciu for being willing to suffer so that he might show others the way and encourage people like him to take a stand. After expressing his longing for religious freedom, Fr Pop concluded, ‘For the time being I am alone in signing this message, but there are many who would like to join me.’16 Even into the late 1980s, attempts by Orthodox priests to join forces were successfully undermined by the heavy-handed combination of religious ministry officials, secret police agents, and church leaders, while Orthodox opposition seemed to be growing in response to the increasing number of cases of harassed or exiled priests. Each religious faith has its own customs and mores according to which its people judge themselves and their leaders. Rather than beginning with the highly subjective categories of Keston Newsletter No 20, 2014 ‘resistor’, ‘dissident’, or ‘collaborator’ and then forcing historical subjects into one of these, let us consider how historical circumstances might have shaped the behaviour of Orthodox priests as compared to clergy of other denominations. Clergy of each denomination respect the teaching, traditions, and senior members of their church, and even during the Communist period such factors affected how clergy acted. In the case of the Romanian Orthodox Church, its structure of authority, its legacy of close cooperation with the government and its anti-schism rhetoric all worked to limit opposition to church-state cooperation and antireligious propaganda. The highly centralised Orthodox Church expected submission, whereas the decentralised Protestant denominations were more local clergy and congregations were not accustomed to accepting meekly the dictates of their church superiors. Also the Orthodox Church had a long history of working in partnership with state power, sometimes called ‘symphonia’, a concept diametrically opposed to the idea of church-state separation, and, unlike other denominations, it had no tradition of scepticism towards state power.17 The Orthodox Church was highly sensitive to any schism or sectarian movement, claiming to be the ‘one true church’ from which all others had deviated. Its daily practice also mitigated against innovation. The liturgy was standardised, limiting free expression, and preaching was not emphasised in Orthodox clergy training. The liturgy included a prayer for the government in power (some clergy expressed their opposition by refusing to pray for CeauSescu or the Socialist Republic of Romania). The Orthodox emphasised participation in the sacraments over biblical teaching on morality which led some to see a bifurcation in the Orthodox 34 Church: a person, on the one hand, might encounter the divine mystically through the sacraments, and on the other consider Christian teaching on daily living to be secondary. The evidence provided by the documents in the Keston Archive point strongly towards the view that Romanian Orthodox priests were not unlike the clergy of other denominations: a good 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. number of them acted or spoke in ways which did not conform to state requiremade more difficult by the lack of any obvious source of community support. Let this not be the final word on the matter, but rather an invitation to further study on how the blend of religious tradition and state action, particular to each denomination, shaped the kind of choices made by believers and clergy. Dennis Deletant, Ceau$escu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1989 (Armonk N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), p.232. For a brief introduction to the life of Fr Calciu, see the obituary written by Michael Bourdeaux, ‘Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa’ The Guardian, 10 January 2007, http://www.theguardian.com/news/2007/jan/10/guardianobituaries.religion. Accessed 3 December 2013. Deletant, loc.cit. It is most likely that a few supporters of Calciu notified a broadcaster such as Radio Free Europe, and from there sympathetic priests found out. Calciu’s sermons were also circulated in samizdat. ‘Romanian Orthodox Priests Criticise Hierarchy,’Keston News Service no. 136, 5 November 1981, pp.3–4. Letter from Comitetul CreStin Român ALRC, dated 10 September 1980. Archive file <RO/Ort>, Keston Archive and Library, Baylor University. Ibid. Cornel AvrRmescu, unpublished letter ‘To leaders of Western countries’. Archive file <RO/Ort/LA 18s>, Keston Archive and Library, Baylor University. ‘Romanian Orthodox Priests under Pressure,’ Keston News Service no. 249, 1 May 1986, p.9. Leonida Pop, ‘PersecuQia Bisericii Ortodoxe din România’, received by Keston 5 November 1978. Archive File <RO/Ort/12>, Keston Archive and Library, Baylor University. Stefan GavrilR, Autobiographical letter, undated, but probably 1974, Archive File <RO/ Ort/8>, Keston Archive and Library, Baylor University. ‘PersecuQia Bisericii Ortodoxe din România’, received 5 November 1978. Archive file <RO/Ort/12>, Keston Archive and Library, Baylor University. Keston News Service, 22 August 1980. Archive file <RO/Ort/6/13.29> Keston Archive and Library, Baylor University. Deletant, op.cit., p.232. Alexandru Pop, open letter to Fr Calciu, dated 19 February1986. Archive file <RO/ Ort/11/4>, Keston Archive and Library, Baylor University. ‘Romanian Priest’s Appeal’, Keston News Service no. 251, 29 May 1986, pp.14–15. Lucian LeuStean, Orthodoxy and the Cold War: Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947-65 ]^ "_ ` a b! 9 " XccU d 7 S argues that the cooperation between the Orthodox Church and the state was not a phenomenon unique to the Communist period. The two bodies cooperated, he argues, in exercising authority over society and promoting a nationalist image of Romania. Ryan J. Voogt is currently a PhD candidate in history at the University of Kentucky. He was given a Keston scholarship in 2013 and was recently awarded a US Fulbright grant to complete his dissertation research in Romania in 2015. Keston Newsletter No 20, 2014 35