Romanian Orthodox / Catholic Relations

Forgive some of the clunky wording. The article is worth a read as it outlines an interplay between the two Churches, the effects of emigration on one side and occasional hostility on the other.

(Directions to Orthodoxy) - The expansion of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the Diaspora has significantly increased in the past few years. It is based on the “economic” emigration which marked an outstanding flow of Romanian labour force. In Italy alone the number of the Romanians is estimated at around one million.

Consequently, the evolution of the Romanian ecclesial structures in the West was normal, two metropolitan bishoprics and several bishoprics being functional in Europe today. This evolution supposed an option of the Holy Synod from Bucharest for younger hierarchs, trained in the West, and with a way of thinking adapted to the cultural specific character of the latter. Although the Romanian communities from the Diaspora have normally complied with folkloric identities, generally these are integrated persons (especially those with higher education) or easy to integrate with the western values (even if consumerist), “pastoration” must take into account the specific context.

Several practical aspects add to this principled problem: bouts of xenophobic hostility with which it is confronted periodically, the attempted delinquency, the discomfort of the uprooting, the implications of the separation of the families, the only relative social integration. Actually, the pastoration of the Romanian emigrants is a challenge for the Romanian Orthodox Church, obliged to give up the common places of some nationalist or passeist landmarks. A consequence of such approach is the relation with the other Christian Churches, especially with the Catholic one in countries like Spain or Italy. There is first of all a concrete support from the latter which grants churches for use. To all this adds the beneficial effects of specific networks of influence with real contributions to the diminution of the grudges of the domestic population against a massive immigration. This functions not only at the level of the communities, but integrates in the general policy of the Catholic Church of exposing the social discrimination. For instance, in Italy this has become the best lawyer of the Romanians in front of a public opinion sometimes unleashed.

Surprising is precisely this good collaboration in the West in parallel with the recrudescence of anti-Catholicism in Romania. The recent “Corneanu” scandal has demonstrated the virulence of the anti-ecumenical camp. Beyond the righteousness of the delimitation from the gesture of the metropolitan bishop of Banat and that of the bishop of Oradea, the polemics have illustrated surprisingly extended attitudes of hate and contempt. On this background, a visit to Romania of Pope Benedict XVI, already invited by President Basescu, becomes improbable. The Holy Synod, where the voice of the opponent to the patriarchal policy, metropolitan bishop Bartolomeu, is still influent, and to whose stand have recently rallied even a few of the older supporters of Daniel, can defer sine die such a visit. The Patriarch will try to make use of the anniversary of a decade since the visit of the predecessor of the present Pope, John Paul II, but the various groups of adversaries can join forces efficiently. Anyway, the practical collaboration from the West will bring fruits in a longer run. The laymen who go today to the churches lent by Catholics will witness, when they return to their country, a more irenic attitude, devoid of intolerant accesses. There is nothing to condition the liturgical practices and the Orthodox catecheses, and thus the episcopate and the clergy from the West are not under any catholicizing influence. What joins on the spot the two Churches are concrete pastoral issues, in an increasingly globalized society. The Orthodox pastoration of today from the West can become in time a starting point for a creative renewal (associated with a permanently necessary return to the sources of authentic tradition) at the level of the whole Romanian Orthodox Church.

But, concretely, at the level of the official relations, the steps will be more prudent. Even if Patriarch Daniel would like to mark festively a decade since the first visit of a Pope to a majority Orthodox country, the basic problem remains, that of the Orthodox solidarity. Although difficult to achieve, only a concerted attitude of the Orthodox Churches can really conduct to a new stage in the relation with the Catholic Church. The road to Rome passes through Moscow and Athens.