NEWS STORY: Pope’s visit to Romania stirs old Orthodox-Catholic tensions

c. 1999 Religion News Service CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania _ When Pope John Paul II makes his historic visit to Romania this weekend, Tertulian Langa will join the crowd. But he would have preferred to welcome the pope here in this Transylvanian city, where Langa is bishop of the Greek Catholic diocese, than to travel 300 miles […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

CLUJ-NAPOCA, Romania _ When Pope John Paul II makes his historic visit to Romania this weekend, Tertulian Langa will join the crowd. But he would have preferred to welcome the pope here in this Transylvanian city, where Langa is bishop of the Greek Catholic diocese, than to travel 300 miles south to Bucharest to see him.

Langa blames leaders of the nation’s dominant Orthodox faith for pressuring the Vatican to restrict the pope’s visit to the capital city of Bucharest, where few Catholics live.”I hope the pope comes as a herald of love and peace,”Langa said. But”they distorted the meaning of the visit. They organized it in communist style … by saying he could only go places indicated by the authorities.” For all the lands John Paul has visited _ including ones largely populated by Protestants, Muslims or Buddhists _ his three-day visit to Romania starting Friday (May 7), will mark his first to a predominantly Orthodox Christian land.


Yet, this dramatic step toward healing the millennium-old schism between Eastern and Western Christianity is aggravating that very split in Romania, particularly here in Transylvania.

This region in northwestern Romania is home to the nation’s Greek Catholic minority _ ethnic Romanians who follow Orthodox liturgy but proclaim loyalty to the pope _ as well as ethnic Hungarian Roman Catholics who follow the traditional Western-style liturgy.

The war in neighboring Yugoslavia makes the pope’s visit more delicate, given the Vatican’s denunciation of ethnic cleansing of Muslim Kosovars by Serbian forces. While the Romanian government has authorized NATO to use its air space, the Romanian Orthodox leadership and many citizens sympathize with their fellow Orthodox Serbs in their claims to sovereignty over Kosovo.

The war has also strained Romania’s already dismal economy, characterized by horse-cart farms and communist-vintage industrial dinosaurs.

Romania’s estimated 1.5 million Roman Catholics have less of a tangled relationship with the Orthodox majority than have the Eastern, or Greek Catholics. But they are also disappointed the pope won’t visit his flocks in Transylvania or Moldavia in the east.”This is a cross for us,”said Roman Catholic spokeswoman Marina Fara.”We believe that in assuming this cross we will help religious life in Romania.” The pope’s itinerary includes stops at Bucharest’s small Roman Catholic cathedral and at a Catholic cemetery, but most of his time will be spent in ecumenical contacts with Romanian Orthodox leaders such as Patriarch Teoctist, who invited the pope earlier this year.

Orthodox officials vigorously deny curbing the pope’s travels, saying the Vatican itself proposed only a short visit to Bucharest.”Cluj is a free city in a free country,”said Orthodox Bishop Bartolomeu of the region of Cluj.”If the pope wants to come to Cluj, he doesn’t need my permission.” The pope’s visit”is only ecumenical and not for negotiations,”the gruff-spoken Bartolomeu added, speaking in an interview in his office next to the large Orthodox cathedral here.”If you extend it into work travel, the symbol is diminished.” Orthodox number 20 million in Romania, or 87 percent of the population. As with dominant Orthodox or Catholic churches in many post-Communist lands, the Romanian Orthodox church has emerged as a nationalist rallying point, enjoying a boost in prestige even though observers say church-going has become more fashion than devotion.

Greek Catholics, who follow Orthodox-style liturgy but are loyal to Rome, claim around 650,000 adherents. Langa suspects hundreds of thousands more are afraid to admit their religious identity, conditioned by fear after decades of being illegal under communism.


Ten years after the communist regime’s overthrow, Greek Catholics are still battling for the return of hundreds or perhaps thousands of churches _ even the actual number is in dispute _ that the communist government turned over to the Orthodox.

In anticipation of the pope’s visit, the two churches set up a commission to review property claims, and they agreed to drop confrontational methods like lawsuits and church occupations. When Greek Catholics recovered their cathedral in Cluj-Napoca last year, however, they got into a shoving match with the evicted Orthodox congregation.”The fifth commandment says, `Do not steal.’ It’s only right for them to give back what the communist system stole from us,”Langa, the Greek Catholic bishop, said in an interview in his small apartment in a pre-fabricated concrete high-rise, where his den is filled with icons and bookshelves weighed down by theological volumes.

Langa, who served 17 years in communist prisons, speaks in a clipped, combative voice that contrasts with his diminutive frame and ready smile.”I’m not against Orthodoxy, I’m against communism,”he maintained, saying the dominant church needs to return the benefits it received from being legal under communism:”Without that, any declaration of love is false.” But Bishop Bartolomeu, who said he also served prison time under communism, said the Greek Catholics have blocked past efforts to settle the church property issue.”We initiated a dialogue, and they rejected that dialogue, preferring (action in) the Parliament and the courts,”he said.

Bartolomeu said church buildings belong to the members, not the leadership, so unless a congregation returns en masse to the Greek Catholic Church, the building should remain Orthodox.

The churches’ division dates back to the 17th century, when Transylvania was under Austrian and Hungarian control. Greek Catholics led a 19th century revival of Romanian national consciousness in Transylvania. This region ultimately was joined up with the rest of present-day Romania, whose Orthodox population had waged its own long struggle for freedom from Turkish domination.

Before the communist era, which began in 1948, Orthodox and Greek Catholic priests cooperated, and worshippers often attended each others’ services, which were virtually identical.


But the bad blood began when the Communist Party banned the Greek Catholic Church and imprisoned all its bishops for life. The Communists forced churchgoers to choose between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Most chose Orthodoxy, since most of the latter churches in Transylvania were Hungarian. While even the legalized churches suffered some persecution, some Orthodox and other church leaders cooperated with the regime to varying extents.

Bartolomeu said dialogue and the pope’s visit would help reconcile the churches, but not quickly.”Our generation still has some poison in our souls,”he said.”It’s much harder for us to make a real dialogue, but I think a new generation will be able.”

DEA END SMITH

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