This caught my eye, over at Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex:
In Transylvania and throughout Romania, Catholics who lost more than 2,000 churches to the Russian Orthodox church after the Second World War when the Russians banned Catholicism now want their churches back. In most cases, the Orthodox church had said no, so Catholics have had to set up chapels in local villages, using borrowed rooms, basements, schools and even open fields to hold Mass. The Orthodox Church is a powerful force in today’s Romania and as a result, a total of 2,200 Catholic properties remained in Orthodox hands and court actions by Catholics to recover the properies, including houses and land, has been met with very limited success.
In January, Romania was admitted to the European Union after promising to respect the rule of law and consequently some properties have been returned to Catholics which now have the Orthodox up in arms, resisting with anger towards the Catholics and vice-versa.
Some things never change..
Reminds me of the back and forth I had with a commenter on Ruth Gledhill’s blog at the Times of London last month
The discussion was about church buildings and I posed the question – since Catholicism was again legal in the UK since the early 1800s, when are the Anglicans going to give back the churches that had been built, paid for and maintained by the Catholics before Henry took them. In particular, I wondered about Westminster Abbey in London and St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin with the wonderful Celtic crosses in the church yard – especially since hardly any Protestants used it.
The Anglican response was that the churches weren’t stolen; all those bishops and pastors voluntarily either joined the Church of England or turned over the churches.
Nobody was forced; Thomas More was executed for treason, not because he didn’t join up with the Church of England. The guy also said that Eamon Duffey was essentially full of beans. The English people had been waiting for baited breath for the Pope to be thrown out. In fact he says it’s still the same church; only without the Pope.
Sounds a lot like the situation in Romania.
I wonder if the stronger witness – which might feel like betraying ancestors, of course – would be to forego reclaiming former properties. That’s not about fake reconciliation, but about transforming a wrong into something of the Spirit.
Liam:
St. Paul leaps to mind: “If you want peace work for justice.” To forgive the thief is not to stop asking for your money back.
Matthew
“If you want peace work for justice.”
I’ve always found that the reverse is true…too many people looking for justice causes a lot of anger.
Hopefully each side can work for loving their neighbors, which will be the only way this situation can be resolved, and the only way true peace can be found.
The Catholic Church might get the churches in Ireland back when the Church of Ireland can no longer afford the upkeep. I note that the newer (1880’s) Catholic cathedral in Dublin is still called the “Provisional Cathedral”, which seems to imply that they expect to get St Patrick’s back. I was also in the Church of Ireland cathedral (former Catholic) in Limerick on Good Friday a few years ago, and there were 12 people there for Tre Ore services. Down the street, thte catholic church was full.
ALthough I hear Catholic attendance is declining in Ireland too. maybe we won’t be able to afford the old buildings either!
The grievance is certainly real, but it seems like rather poor timing to raise it this week, when the Romanian Orthodox Church has just elected a new Patriarch.
The new Patriarch Daniel (who will be installed Sept. 30) shares the ecumenical views of his predecessor Teoctist, who met with John Paul II in Rome several years ago. The sizable anti-ecumenical wing of the Romanian Orthodox Church had denounced Daniel during the synod as the candidate of the “Catholics and Masons” but he nevertheless went out of his way to express friendship toward the Catholic Church in his remarks following the election.
I think comparison of the cases of England and Romania has its limitations. While Henry VIII certainly committed a crime, he did so in the early 16th century. Consequently, one could demand the Bibliotheca Palatina, a collection of manuscripts and books confiscated in Heidelberg during the 30 Years War (1618-1648) and sent to Rome by the catholic general, to be given back to Germany. Those were different times.
On the other hand, it is pretty clear who is the felon in the Romanian case – the same goes for the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, Belarus and so on. The Orthodox Church is not yet willing to acknowledge their sinful deeds, and one day this will come back haunting them.
I agree with Liam’s sentiment completely. And, as a practical matter, the English Benedictines could not possibly maintain Westminster Abbey even if the Queen gave it back to them. And, who in the Catholic community would be willing to pay for the upkeep of the medieval Cathedrals? And, moreover, whose Cathedral would Canterbury Cathedral be, since there is no Catholic bishop of that city? 450 years is simply too long a time to unwind the wrongs that were done.
I have a fair amount of familiarity with this situation in Romania. My father’s grandfather (and two generations before that), along with 2 of his uncles, were married priests in the Romanian Catholic church. When the communists took over they outlawed Catholicism and gave the Catholic churches to the Orthodox. When communism fell the Orthodox refused to give back the churches.
The thing to know is that the Orthodox are not using many/most of the churches. For example, in our ancestral village, where my great grandfather was a priest, the Orthodox priest owns 2 churches: the Orthodox church and the former Catholic church directly across the street, which is now falling to rot and ruin. When we last visited the little church one year ago we found Potatoes stored in the vestibule. The Orthodox congregation does use the slightly smaller former Catholic church in the winter because it is cheaper to heat.
This is the case in many of the towns and villages. Honestly, it seems that the Orthodox want the churches just so the Catholics can’t have them. The Catholic Church is not just sitting back and demanding the return of their property; there is a very active program of building new churches. My father contributed to the construction of two new Catholic churches in Romania, and we just paid money from my father’s estate toward a third church (he promised the money before his death earlier this year). The vicar general of the diocese of Bucharest is a charming and resourceful priest, and the Catholics are attacking the problem on several fronts. It certainly is expensive to rebuild churches, however, especially when there are former Catholic churches standing empty.
Historically, the population of Romania has been divided between Romanian “Greek Catholic aka The Romanian Church United with Rome” and Orthodox. In 1948, the Communist government in Romania formally “dissolved” the Greek Catholic Church and gave most of its property to the Orthodox. 2,588 Greek Catholic churches changed hands. All Catholic bishops were arrested and imprisoned. The Orthodox Church in Romania, on the other hand, cooperated closely with the government and flourished.
In 1990, with the overthrow of the Ceausescu regime, Greek Catholics were allowed to worship openly. Three secretly ordained bishops emerged from hiding. Pope John Paul II reestablished the hierarchy of the church by appointing bishops for all dioceses, later that year. There are approximately 3 million Greek Catholics in Romania.
Of course, in Romania, it’s not the Russian Orthodox Church, but the Romanian Orthodox Church.
“If you want peace work for justice.” It wasn’t St. Paul who said this. I haven’t looked it up, but I’m pretty sure it was Pope Paul VI.
Matthew
Even if one accepts your example for the sake of argument, this is more like asking for demanding repayment by the thief’s son or grandson. Maybe reparations for the descendents of enslaved people makes even more claims on justice?
I specifically noted that false reconciliation would not be the goal of foregoing a claim. Working for justice does not necessarily hinge on sustaining a claim, however right the claim is. In fact, the example of the Lord is a stark reminder of the limits of what is right as a matter of justice – God’s justice flows from His mercy, and we are not merely invited but commanded to imitate that calculus of heaven not of earth.
As part of the reparations love-feast, shouldn’t the Shroud
of Turin be returned to the Patriarch of Constantinople ?
Actually, the Catholic tour guide in Dublin told me when we got back on the bus that the Catholic Church couldn’t afford to keep up St Patrick’s Cathedral and the Irish viewed it as a museum with the Brits paying for it. But the principle of it still remains – which the Brits do not acknowledge.
BTW I turned 63 the other day and was very much alive in 1948. So – if I was Romanian it would not be a claim on behalf of ancestors. I’m sure there are still lots of Romanians even older than me who remember worshipping in their own buildings. So the comparison with claims of the descendants of slaves does not apply.
The Getty Museum has recently returned a bunch of their antiquities to Egypt and I think also Greece. And there is a big fight going on between the British Museum and the Greek government over the stolen Elgin marbles. In Illinois a lot of Indian remains have been returned to the tribal descendants – totally emptying one museum downstate.
The Romanian Orthodox Church is unique among the Orthodox churches as it alone grew within a Latin culture. Roman soldiers occupied Dacia following conquest by Trajan in 106 AD. Latin and Byzantine missionaries were active in the area for centuries.
In the middle ages, Walachia and Moldavia emerged as political states, although they became vassals of the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Islamic policy of eliminating Catholicism with Orthodox cooperation explains the growth of Orthodoxy and the diminishment of Catholicism within these principalities during this time.
During the 19th century, Walachia and Moldavia joined Russia in a successful war against the Ottoman Empire. These two principalities came under the influence of Russia and the Orthodox emerged from their Islamic vassalage. The Patriarch of Constantinople, which had exercised jurisdiction over the Orthodox in this area, granted autocephalous status to the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1885. Catholicism, however, fared no better during this period than they did during Islamic rule.
In 1687, the Hapsburg Austrian Emperor Leopold I drove the Ottomans from Transylvania and annexed it. His policy was to encourage the Orthodox to reunite with Rome. He also established a policy of taxing and suppressing the Orthodox within his realm. In 1700, a large synod of Orthodox clergy, led by Metropolitan Atanasie, formally reunited with Rome. In 1744, however, an Orthodox monk named Visarion led an uprising against the government that resulted in the appointment of an Orthodox bishop for Orthodox faithful by Empress Maria Theresa and the easing of imperial suppression of the Orthodox. Together with Latin Catholics in Transylvania, Greek Catholics comprised the great majority of the population.
At the end of WWI, Transylvania was joined to Walachia and Moldavia by the Great Powers to become independent Greater Romania. The Romanian Orthodox Church was raised to the rank of Patriarchate in 1925. By 1940, the Romanian Greek Catholic Church had 5 dioceses, 1,500 priests (90% married), and about 1.5 million faithful. 3 major seminaries were full and a Pontifical Romanian College in Rome was receiving students. Greek Catholic faith was flourishing. All that would change after WWII.
Today the Orthodox Church of Romania has four eparchies, 2 vicariates with a total of 167 parishes served by 170 priests. In contrast, the Romanian Greek Catholic Church is also known as “The Romanian Church United with Rome.” The Church is a Major Achepiscopate whose Metropolitan governs the Church through Provincial Synods that pass legislation concerning aspects of church life that are then approved by the Pope. This Church conforms to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches and is not governed by Latin Church law. It operates 3 seminaries (with 274 seminarians) and 3 theological institutes for 5 eparchies. There are 1,239 parishes (including 14 in the US) served by 791 priests.
(From: The Eastern Christian Churches, R Roberson, 1999; Article on Romania, Wikipedia; Annuario Pontificio)