Church Reckoning with Communism in Post-1989 Romania

The present volume focuses on the relationship with Communism of Romania's most important religious denominations and their attempt to cope with that difficult past which continues to cast an important shadow over their present. For the first time ever, this volume considers both the majority Romanian Orthodox Church and significant minority denominations such as the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches, the Reformed Church, the Hungarian Unitarian Church, and the Pentecostal Christian Denomination. It argues that no religious group escaped collaboration with the Communists. After 1989, however, most denominations had little desire to tackle their tainted past and make a clean start. In part, this situation was facilitated by the country's deficient legislation that did not encourage the pursuit of lustration, which in turn did not lead to a serious movement of elite renewal in the religious realm. Instead, a strong process of reproduction of the old elites and their adaptation to democracy has been the dominant characteristic of the post-Communist period.

Lavinia Stan is professor at St. Francis Xavier University.
Lucian Turcescu is professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University.

Contents
Introduction
Part One: The Romanian Orthodox Church
Chapter 1
Prison Saints: Memorialization, Sacralization, and Collective Catharsis
Monica Ciobanu
Chapter 2
Go-Betweens and Intersections: The Communist Inspectors for Religious Denominations, a Case Study
Anca ?incan
Chapter 3
Collaboration with the Communists in the Orthodox Theological Institutes
Lucian Turcescu
Chapter 4
Orthodox Churches and Political Strategies in Romania and Yugoslavia
Lucian N. Leustean
Part Two: Catholic Churches
Chapter 5
The Roman Catholic Church during and after the Communist Regime
Zoltán Mihály Nagy and Csaba Zoltán Novák
Chapter 6
The Greek Catholic Church: A Troubled Recent Past and a Painful Transitional Justice
Cristian Vasile
Part Three: Protestant Churches
Chapter 7
The Reformed Elite Facing the Communist Regime
Csongor Jánosi
Chapter 8
Resistance, Conformation and Service: The Unitarian Church during 1945-1965
János Pál
Chapter 9
The Pentecostals and the Legacy of Communism
Vasilica Croitor
Conclusion
About the Contributors