Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic

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The Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic (in Romanian: Biserica Română Unită cu Roma, Greco-Catolică) is an Eastern Rite or Greek-Catholic Church ranked as a Major Archiepiscopal Church, which uses the Byzantine liturgical rite in the Romanian language.

Since 1994, the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church has been led by the Most Reverend Lucian Mureşan, Archbishop of Făgăraş and Alba Julia, who on December 16, 2005 became its first Major Archbishop when it was raised to the rank of a Major Archiepiscopal Church by Benedict XVI. The Church has four other dioceses in Romania (Oradea Mare, Cluj-Gherla, Lugoj and Maramureş), [1] and one, directly subject to the Holy See, in the United States of America (Saint George's in Canton, Ohio).[2]

According to the information, valid for the end of 2003, given in the 2005 Annuario Pontificio, it then had 737,900 faithful, many bishops, some 716 diocesan priests and 347 seminarians of its own rite. However, according to the 2002 Romanian state census, the number of faithful in Romania is as low as 191,556.[3] The dispute over the figure is included in the US State Department report on religious freedom in Romania. [4] The Romanian Orthodox Church continues to claim many of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church's properties and even its faithful.

Romania also has another five dioceses for Latin Rite Catholics, who are more numerous.

1 History
- 1.1 Oppression
  - 1.1.1 Atheist persecution under Communism
  - 1.1.2 Latin Rite Roman Catholic
2 References
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

In 1700 many of the Romanians of Transylvania, headed by Bishop Atanasie Anghel, entered into full communion with the See of Rome, while keeping their own Greek Byzantine liturgical rite.

Metropolitan Atanasie Anghel and his Holy Synod took this course to obtain for the Romanians of Transylvania (then part of the Habsburg Empire) the same rights as the other nations of the Unio Trium Nationum (nobility, Germanic Transylvanian Saxons and széklers). The event coincided with the arrival of the Jesuits, who attempted to align Transylvania more closely with Western Europe.

The bishop's residence was moved from Alba Iulia to Făgăras in 1721 and then, in 1737 to Blaj, which became a centre of learning and national awakening for all Romania. This was in part due to the fact that, unlike the Romanian Orthodox who until 1863 officially used Church Slavonic in their Byzantine liturgy, the Romanian Church United with Rome used the Romanian vernacular since its beginnings. When, in the 19th century, Hungary followed a Magyarization policy, the Greek-Catholic Church played a prominent part in resisting ethnic assimilation, with (the Transylvanian School) Şcoala Ardeleană and the Transylvanian Memorandum.

Other eparchies were set up at Oradea (1777) and at Gherla and Lugoj (1853); and Blaj, under the title of Alba Iulia and Făgăras, became their metropolitan (in the sense of archiepiscopal) see. On December 16, 2005, the Church was raised to the dignity of a Major Archiepiscopal Church.

[edit] Oppression

The Greek-Catholic Church was repressed at various times throughout history, by various groups, and took many forms.

[edit] Atheist persecution under Communism

In 1948, the Communist regime that had taken power deposed all the bishops of the Greek-Catholic Church and, on October 21st 1948, the 250th anniversary of the Romanian Greek Catholic Union with the Roman Catholic Church, arranged the "spontaneous" passage of all its members (decree 358/1948), who were then some 1,500,000 in numbers, to the Romanian Orthodox Church, to which some of its property, including four cathedrals, were given, while the rest was confiscated by the state.

The Catholic bishops, and many Greek-Catholic priests, were arrested for "undemocratic activity", mainly for refusal to give up ties with the "reactionary" Holy See. In the meantime, the Orthodox Church was "purged" of priests unfriendly to the Communist regime and, for the next 40 years, it had good relations with the Communist authorities.

Iuliu Hossu, Bishop of Cluj, refused the proposal of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch, Iustinian Marina, to become the Orthodox Archbishop of Iaşi and metropolitan of Moldavia, and thereby even the official successor to the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch himself. He remained under house arrest, and each year sent a memorandum to the President of the Republic, asking that the country's laws and Romania's international agreements be observed with regard to the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church. In 1969, Pope Paul VI asked him to accept appointment to the cardinalate. As he preferred to stay with his people, the Pope made him cardinal only "in pectore", i.e. without publishing the fact, which he revealed only on March 5, 1973, three years after Bishop Hossu's death.

Another remarkable Romanian ecclesiastic of the time was Alexandru Todea (1912–2002). Secretly ordained as a titular bishop on 19 November 1950, he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in the following year. He was given amnesty in 1964 and on March 14, 1990, after the fall of the Communist regime, was appointed Archbishop of Făgăraş and Alba Iulia, becoming a cardinal in the following year.

After more than forty years of surviving only in secrecy and illegally, the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic, was able to appear again in public only after the 1989 Romanian Revolution. Normative act 9/31, passed on 31 December 1989, repealed Decree 358/1948 as repugnant and bringing grave prejudice upon the Romanian State.

With some delay, some of the Church's property, in particular the cathedrals of Cluj, Blaj, Lugoj and Oradea, which the Communist Government had transferred to the Orthodox Church, have been restored to it.

[edit] Latin Rite Roman Catholic

Unlike other sources of pressure, Latin Rite pressure against this Church came from within Catholicism, one segment of the same Universal Church attempting to modify, suppress,^{[citation needed]} or even outright ban^{[citation needed]} another part.

Historically, Eastern Catholic Churches in general came under pressure to modify their practices, to Romanize. In the case of the Byzantine-Rite Romanian Catholic Church, the pressure grew with the creation, 17 years after Romania's Greek-catholics recreated a full communion with Rome, of the "Commission, created in 1717 and operational in the heart of the Congregation for the Propagation of Faith ('Propaganda Fide') until 1862, for the correction of the liturgical books of the Church of the East. These interventions felt the effects of the mentality and convictions of the times, according to which a certain subordination of the non-Latin liturgies was perceived toward the Latin rite liturgy which was considered 'ritus praestantior.' This attitude may have led to interventions in the Eastern liturgical texts which today, in light of theological studies and progress, have need of revision, in the sense of a return to ancestral traditions."^[1]

Given that the Commission came into being so close to the date of reunification, Romanian Byzantine Catholicism is naturally the most profoundly affected of all the eastern churches^{[citation needed]} as it never had a chance to gain its legs and get a sense of self within Catholicism prior to the creation of this innovating Commission.

Latin Rite repression of this Church^{[citation needed]} recently centers in the United States and consists of repeated, and sometimes successful requests for partial or total suppression^{[citation needed]} of the Church's Rite. This has largely been based on the issue of a married clergy in the Eastern Rites in general.