Historical Yearbook

Volume XIII, 2016

A MISSED OPPORTUNITY:
THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE SECOND
VATICAN COUNCIL

Gabriel Stelian MANEA*

Abstract: The only one of the Orthodox Churches which did not send
observer-delegates to the Second Vatican Council, the Romanian Orthodox
Church, has missed the opportunity of an ecumenical opening, very fashionable
for that time and which, in addition, would have relieved it from many outright
accusations, reproofs and attacks. On one hand it was a victim of the imposed
control and of decisions taken by the political and administrative bodies of the
time, first of all by the Department of Cults, and on the other hand we must
mention that Romanian Patriarchy has hidden and even has felt comfortable
behind these imperatives of the regime. A common fear has united the Church
and the atheist state in this cause, namely the fear that the issue of the former
Greek-Catholic Church would reappear as one of not only ecclesiastic interest, yet
also political, at internal and international level.

Keywords: Romanian Orthodox Church, Greek-Catholic Church, Second

Vatican Council, Patriarch Justinian, Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI,
ecumenism

Following the First Vatican Council1, in 1868 and during almost an

entire century, the Catholic Church has promoted obvious intransigency in its

* ”Ovidius” University in Constanța.

1
There was also a First Vatican Council convoked by Pope Pius IX in 1868. After three
centuries during which the Catholic Church had strengthened in terms of Reform, in the
middle of 19th century a new threat was troubling it and was menacing its supremacy. On
one hand, even from the end of the 18th century, the political and philosophical
enlightenment was bringing to Europe a wave of anticlericalism, of non-religiosity, and later
on, the scientific and technological revolution was already announcing the materialism of
the next century. To answer these challenges, the Catholic Church has convoked the First
Vatican Council, assembled in a menacing political context. The first session was opened in
December 1869, and then it was interrupted in 1870, considering the Franco-Prussian war
and the occupation of Rome (by that time the capital of the Papal State) by the Italian army.
This Council was interrupted until 1960 when it as officially declared closed by John XXIII
as part of the preparations for the new council. Although it has a place in history for the
endorsement of the doctrine of the papal infallibility. Ioan Robu, 50 de ani de la Conciliul
Vatican II [50 years from the Second Vatican Council], București, Romano-Catholic
Archiepiscopate Press, 2014, p. 137-138.

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relations with the other Christians, considering itself as a formation evolving

from the primary church, superior to the Orthodox one, for instance, and
which all Christians should have embraced. The openness initiated and
promoted by Pope John XXIII and continued by Pope Paul VI was necessary
in order for the Catholic Church to try, sometimes with insistence, to resume
the ecumenical dialogue with the Orthodox Church. These initiatives and
persistence have materialized during the works of the Second Vatican Council,
and also in the documents that the Council has produced. In such a hopeful
atmosphere, the Romanian Orthodox Church, namely Patriarch Justinian, has
received numerous invitations in view of participating to the works and
concrete proposals concerning the visits to Romania of Roman-Catholic
representatives which deliberately, as we will show hereinafter, have received
tardive and equivocal responses, or have been simply ignored.
On the other hand, the Holy See is a sovereign matter of international
right and, as a consequence, takes part in the major initiatives and evolutions of
the time. In such a context of the analysis, the opening by the Vatican of the
ecumenical dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox Church is an action similar to,
if not a constitutive part of a stage of obvious relaxation of the relations
between the protagonists of the Cold War, relaxation occurred after the death
of Stalin, after the ending of the Korean War and in the context of what was
called “the spirit of Geneva” and of the de-Stalinization. The world is divided in
East and West not only politically and militarily, yet also in terms of the church,
between an Eastern Church and a Western one, found together in a secular
“cold war”.
Finally, Pope John XXIII was the successor of Pope Pius XII, a
sovereign pontiff accused at that time and at a later date of a guilty silence
towards the fascist horrors against Jews and which has thus caused an image
prejudice to the Catholic Church which had to be recovered. The
announcement of convoking an ecumenical Council which was promising to
become historical was obviously serving such an objective.
On January 25th, 1959, in a speech which has surprised the entire world,
Pope John XXIII was announcing from Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura that
he intended to convoke an ecumenical Council “dedicated to the problem of the
reunification of the Church”. At the time this news was issued there was no doubt
that “the problem of the unity of Christian world seems to be the most important for John
XXIII”, so that “the next Council will be dedicated in particular to the issue of the
reunification of the Church under the leadership of Rome”.2 This is the reason why from
those very moments it made sense that representatives of the Orthodox,

2
Filippo Pucci, Un annuncio di straordinaria importanzaper il mondo cattolico. Il Papa
convocherà un concilio ecumenico, in „Stampa Sera”, year 91, no. 22, 26-27 gennaio 1959,
p. 1.

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Anglican and Protestant Churches will be invited to participate to the works. 3

The term ecumenical has also promoted, even from the preliminary phases, the
belief that the other Christian churches were to be invited to the Council works.
The actual speech of the Pope remained secret for a while, until it has
been published in 1960 under the title of “Superno Dei”. In it, John XXIII was
speaking about divine inspiration: “We think it was God’s will for us to have this idea,
almost immediately after the beginning of Our Pontificate (only three months had passed
from the establishment of Pope John XXIII on the holy see of Saint Peter
A/N), to convoke an ecumenical Council, like the blooming of an unexpected spring”. From
its first lines, this apostolic letter expressed the pope’s intentions for such a
“solemn gathering”: “... assembled around the Roman Pontiff, the Church, the beloved bride
of Christ, may receive a new and great splendor in these turbid times; and a new hope appears,
that those who rejoice in the name of Christ, yet they are separated from the apostolic see,
hearing the voice of the Divine shepherd, they will find the way to the one Church of Christ”.4
Afterwards, from inside the Catholic Church, theologians and expositors have
tried to minimalize this intention of the pope and to emphasize the dimension
of “renewal”, of “adaptation” of the catholic doctrine that the Council has tried
to achieve.5 Yet this very “aggiornamento” was meant, in the vision of Pope
John XXIII, to make the reunion of the Christians easier.6 Still, this noble
intention needed the participation of all Christians and speaking to them the
pope was saying: “when we invite you with love to the unity of the Church, we do not invite
you into the house of a stranger, yet into your home, into the house of your Father. It belongs
to all of you”.7
Even the next pope, Paul VI, in the opening of the second session of
the Council, on September 29th, 1963, was referring to the fact that “The Church
of Christ is unique and should be unique, and this mysterious and visible unity cannot take
place except by one belief, with the participation to the same sacraments, with constant

3
Idem, Il Concilio Indetto per l'unità della Chiesa, in „La Stampa”, year 93, no. 23, 27
gennaio 1959, p. 9.
4
John XXIII, Carta apostólica „Superno Dei”, https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-
xxiii/es/apost_letters/1960/documents/hf_j-xxiii_apl_19600605_superno-dei.html. Accessed
August 30th, 2016.
5
Among those were also Cardinal Bea, one of the most appreciated theologians of the
Church, the President of the Secretariat for Promoting the Christian Unity and the one that
has written the most and has expressed at best the opinions on the objectives, ambitions and
expectations that the Catholic Church had at this sacred gathering. Concerning the unity, his
tone was a moderate one when he declared that “it is essential to clearly mention that this
Council will not be able to immediately make concrete steps towards the unity of Christians.
Yet, the renewal of the Church and the revision of its formats were observing closely the
objective of the reunion. The Council will probably be able to set a mechanism that would
directly help the cause of the unity”. Bernard Pawley, Looking at the Vatican Council,
London, SCM Press LTD, 1962, p. 102.
6
Ibidem, p. 63-64.
7
Ibidem, p. 66.

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A MISSED OPPORTUNITY:
THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

adhesion to the same ecclesiastic order, even if there may be admitted linguistic diversities,
sacred rituals and traditions preserved from ancient times, local privileges, spirituality
movements…”.8 Even if during the works the witnesses to the event have noticed
a dilution of this objective of Christian unity, it did not disappear completely,
proof of this being, amongst other, the creation of the Secretariat for
Promoting the Christian Unity. As Bernard Pawley the representative of the
Anglican Church mentioned, it is a fact that this Council “was meant with the
objective of removing, as much as possible, the barriers in front of the unity”.9 The last
public session of the Council from December 7th, 1965, has even included the
reading of the common declaration by which the Catholic and Orthodox
Churches were mutually removing the millenary excommunications, followed
by the famous kiss between Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Meliton of
Chalcedon, the representative of Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople.
Finally, at the Council closure ceremony, on December 8th 1965, in Saint Peter
Square, the words of the Pope have echoed for all Christians: “Nobody is a
stranger for the Catholic Church, nobody is excluded, and nobody is rejected”.10
Thus, the Second Vatican Council was organized with a triple purpose:
to renew the Church, to unite the Christians and to open a dialogue with the
contemporary world. The objective of the Council was clearly exposed by its
very initiator, namely that of “presenting the Church of God to the world (…) with an
updated legislation, in view of a better accomplishment of its divine mission under the
circumstances of present time”. It was a generous, ambitious objective, understood as
a general renewal, a readjustment11 of the Church to the needs of present time.
Yet this objective was related, in the mind of Pope John XXIII, to that of the
Christian unity, as explained the sovereign pontiff in an introductory speech:
“Once we have accomplished this task, eliminating all that humanly could prevent the rapid
progress, then we will have a Church in full splendor, sine macula et sine ruga, (with no
spots and wrinkles A/N) and we will tell to all those that are separated from it: Watch,
brothers, this is the Church of Christ. (…) Come, the way is opening to rejoin altogether and
to return home!”.12

8
Paul VI, Allocuzione del Santo Padre Paolo VI, http://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-
vi/it/speeches/1963/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19630929_concilio-vaticano-ii.html. Accessed
August 30th, 2016.
9
Bernard Pawley, op. cit., p. 17.
10
Ibidem, p. 119.
11
The Catholic Church was always careful not to use the term “reform” or “reformation”
from two clear reasons. First of all, it has tried to avoid any confusion, with or without will,
with the events from the 16th century which had led to the birth of Protestantism. And
secondly because it wants to keep for itself what represents a precious and essential belief,
namely that the Church is now and forever the mystical body of Christ Incarnated which
must not be reformed.
12
Bernard Pawley, op. cit., p. 73.

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On October 11th, 1962 in St. Peter’s Basilica the 21st Ecumenical

Council of the Catholic Church was opening.13 The Second Vatican Council has
gathered 2,860 council fathers from 141 countries, joined by 453 experts, 58
auditors and laic guests, and 101 non-Catholic observers.14 During four
sessions, until December 8th, 1965, chaired by two popes, John XXIII and after
his death by Paul VI, not less than 16 documents have been adopted.15

***

The official invitation to participate to the works of the Council by

sending observers was issued even before the works began, from the part of a
preparatory work team from the Secretariat for Promoting the Christian Unity.
The letter addressed to Patriarch Justinian from the City of Vatican on October
6th 1962 was signed by Cardinal Augustin Bea, the president of the
abovementioned Secretariat. In the name of Pope John XXIII, the Cardinal
made the invitation for “sending as observer-delegates to the Second Vatican Council two
trustworthy clerics or theologians of Your Sanctity”. Reminding that similar invitations

13
The first council or synod recognized is that from Jerusalem about which we read in Acts
(15:1-29) on the controversy whether converted Christians should or not respect the Mosaic
Law also. Starting with this synod, the Catholic Church has 20 councils and the Second
Vatican Council is considered the 21st. Obviously, the other Christians do not recognize such
a numbering, for instance the orthodox, for which there are only 7 ecumenical synods. This
difference comes from a different understanding of the term ‘ecumenical’. The Catholic
Church understands that there is one only Church and a unique head, namely the Pope.
Consequently, a council represents the assembly of those bishops, only of those bishops that
are in communion with the Pope. The fact that the rest of the Christians, Orthodox and
Protestants, which are not a few, are ignored, does not prevent the Catholic Church from
naming such a council as an ecumenical one. This interpretation, inacceptable for the other
Christians, has led to 21 ecumenical councils of the Catholic Church. For instance, the
Council in Trento (1545-1564), convoked to answer the challenges of the Reform is
considered an ecumenical one, although from possibly around 700 bishops that would have
participated only about 30 were present, and the ones from German or Scandinavian regions
facing the Reform none was present. Ibidem, p. 50-51.
14
Paul Poupard, Conciliul Vatican II [The Second Vatican Council], Târgu Lăpuș, Galaxia
Gutenberg Press, 2008, p. 7.
15
Constitutions: Sacrosanctum concilium (on the sacredness of the holy service); Lumen
gentium (on the Church); Dei Verbum (on Divine revelation); Gaudium et spes (on the
Church in contemporary world); Decrees: Inter mirifica (on social communication means);
Orientalium Ecclesiarum (on Oriental Churches); Unitatis redintegratio (on ecumenism);
Christul Dominus (on the role of bishops in the Church); Perfectae caritatis (on the renewal
of the monachal life); Optatam totius (on the sacerdotal training); Apostolicam actuositatem
(on apostolate of laics); Ad gentes (on the activity of misionaries); Presbyterorum ordinis
(on the sacerdotal service); Declarations: Gravissimum educationis (on education); Nostra
aetate (on relations with other religions); Dignitatis humanae (on religious liberty). Ioan
Robu, op. cit., p. 4.

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have also been made to the Patriarchal See in Constantinople to the Moscow
Patriarchy, the Cardinal expressed the hope and the “prayer to God for the
intervention of the observers to be an efficient contribution in view of an ever increasing
knowledge and appreciation amongst all those called Christians and spiritually united in
Eucharist”.16
Indeed, these observer-delegates would not only be spectators in the
unfolding of the sessions, yet they could also intervene with opinions and
comments; it is true, not during the sessions but through a secretariat.
Otherwise, some rules have been elaborated concerning them. The purpose of
their presence to the Council was that “those Christians who know themselves as
separated from the Apostolic See to be better informed on the works of the Second Vatican
Council”. Thus, according to their status, “the observers have the right to participate to
the public solemn sessions and to the closed general sessions (…) The observers are not allowed
to talk or to vote during the discussions or sessions of the Council”, yet “it is the Secretariat’s
obligation, in view of promoting the Christian unity, to mediate between the bodies of the
Council and observers, any information needed for an easier and more complete follow-up on
the works of the Council”.17
These rules which defined the status of the observers clearly showed
that the representatives of the Romanian Orthodox Church would have not
been obliged, by their mere presence, to assume a certain point of view during
the debates on delicate matters, and it would have been even much less likely to
be mandatory to sign some documents.
Coming back to the invitation addressed to the Romanian Orthodox
Church, it was accompanied by another letter, also in attention of Patriarch
Justinian, yet signed by Father J. G. M. Willebrands18, the secretary of the
Secretariat for Promoting the Christian Unity. Its explanatory notes are already
showing us that the Romanian Orthodox Church expresses some type of
reluctance in honoring the invitation. Normally, such an invitation should have
been sent personally to His Excellency Patriarch Justinian, as Father
Willebrands had done in case of the Patriarchy in Constantinople which he has
visited in February and May 1962, and in case of the Moscow Patriarchy, visited
in September. “I would have liked – wrote Father Willebrands – to come to Bucharest,
to approach Your Excellency in the same manner. It has been impossible for me to get a visa

16
National Archives of Romania (ANR), Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr.
20/1962, f. 5.
17
Ibidem, f. 1.
18
Born in Holland, Johannes Gerardus Maria Willebrands had studied philosophy and
theology at the seminar in Warmond and was ordained priest in 1934. He has continued to
study, obtaining a PhD diploma in philosophy and teaching this matter at the same seminar.
In 1937 he was era vicar in Amsterdam, and after the war he was appointed secretary
general of the Catholic Conference on ecumenical affairs. From 1960 he was secretary then
president of the Secretariat for Promoting the Christian Unity. Ibidem, f. 14. In 1969 he
became cardinal of the Catholic Church.

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for Romania”. Under these circumstances, “faced with the impossibility of a visit, our
Secretariat has decided to send an invitation to the Romanian Patriarchy and I found it useful
to attach this explanatory letter”.19 We must underline that such a complicated
procedure, with letters of invitation doubled by different representatives of the
Romano-Catholics, with proposals of official visits never honored, was caused
by the lack of diplomatic connections between Romania and Vatican. In 1948
the Concordat with Vatican, the basis of bilateral relations, was denounced by
the Romanian Government, and the diplomatic connections stopped in 1950,
when the representatives of the Holy See, and even the Apostolic Nuncio,
Patrick O'Hara, an American, were forced to leave Romania following a process
of espionage.20
In addition, the same Father Willebrand has also sent a letter to
Archbishop Justin which he has met during the sessions of the Ecumenical
Council of the Churches, on October 6th, ensuring him that the observers of the
Romanian Orthodox Church are welcome either to the council session in the
autumn of 1962, or to the one expected in the spring of 1963.21
This initial insistence of the Church of Rome remained without a clear
answer from Patriarch Justinian and it is certain that the first session of the
Council took place without Romanian observers. It is also true that for this first
absence the Romanian Patriarchy had a certain justification in the discussions
and the common decision approved by the First Pan-Orthodox Conference in
Rhodes, in September-October 1961, according to which no orthodox church
were to send delegates to the Catholic synod.22 The only church creating a
breach in this apparent solidarity of the orthodoxy was the Russian Orthodox
Church23 which has sent two delegates even from the first session of the

19
Ibidem, f. 2.
20
The Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania
(CPADCR), Raport final [Final report], București, 2006, p. 464. Ioan Marius Bucur,
Relaţiile României cu Sfântul Scaun la începutul Războiului Rece [Romania’s relations with
the Holy See in the beginning of the Cold War], in “Studia Theologica”, year V, no. 1, 2007,
p. 10- 14.
21
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 20/1962, f. 3.
22
Viorel Ioniță, Hotărârile întâlnirilor panortodoxe din 1923 până în 2009. Spre Sfântul și
Marele Sinod al Bisericii Ortodoxe [The decisions of the pan-orthodox meetings from 1923
to 2009. Towards the Sacred and Great Synod of the Orthodox Church], București, Basilica
Press of the Romanian Patriarchy, 2013, p. 55-61, 166-167.
23
This noncompliance of the Russian Orthodox Church has at least two explanations. First
of all, the Soviet Union and Hrusciov in person are employed in an effort to renew the image
globally, effort for which the authority and moral prestige of Vatican could have represented
a very important ingredient. Secondly, the Russian Patriarchy was in a kind of competition,
not publicly confessed, with the Ecumenical Patriarchy in Constantinople, for which reason
it was obliged to exaggerate sometimes about the openness and the good relations with the
Roman-Catholic Church. Ovidiu Bozgan, Cronica unui eșec previzibil. România și Sfântul
Scaun în epoca Pontificatului lui Paul al VI-lea (1963-1978) [The chronicle of a predictable

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A MISSED OPPORTUNITY:
THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

Council, a fact that has created an obvious confusion and took by surprise not
only Patriarch Justinian, yet also and especially Athenagoras, the Ecumenical
Patriarch. The latter had communicated to Vatican that based on the decision in
Rhodes and in view of maintaining the orthodox unity, no delegates can be sent
to the works of the Council.
The silence of the Romanian Patriarchy was interrupted, early in June
1963, with the passing away of Pope John XXIII, when the Romanian
Orthodox Church, through the voice of his Leader, has sent condolences,
“expressing the appreciation that the hierarchs, the clergy and orthodox believers in the
Popular Republic of Romania have expressed for the initiatives of the leader of the Romano-
Catholic Church of supporting noble actions of all peoples in view of achieving peace on
earth”24, as results from a press release worded, as the formulations reveal, by
public servants from the Department of Cults. In response, an appreciation
letter was sent by Cardinal Aloisis Masella on June 10th, yet including a message
with a clear innuendo to one of the objectives of the Council the Romanian
observers were missing from. Thanking His Sancity Justinian, the Romanian
clergy and the believers for the expressed prayers, the cardinal underlined that
the entire life of the deceased pope had been dedicated to “peace for all people and
unity for all Christians”.25
The gestures of minimum inter-confessional and ecumenical courtesy
have continued until the end of June 1963, after the election of a new pope, in
the person of Paul VI, Patriarch Justinian sending him a telegram of
congratulation, yet which also included a reference to “the great work began by John
XXIII”26, namely to the vision, intentions and efforts in uniting the Christians.
In political terms, the fact that the Romanian Orthodox Church was starting to
accept the dialogue with Vatican, even under this epistolary form, was the result
of a new orientation of the Romanian diplomacy, one that was looking for
interlocutors beyond the narrow area of socialist countries.27 In addition, it is
well known the fact that the rhetoric of peace, very dear to the communists as

failure. Romania and the Holy See in the epoch of Paul VI Pontificate], București, Curtea
Veche Publishing House, 2004, p. 134-135.
24
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 20/1962, f. 9.
25
Ibidem, f. 11.
26
Ibidem, f. 7.
27
See, among others: Joseph F. Harrington, Bruce J. Courtney, Relaţiile româno-americane
1940-1990 [Romanian-American relations], Iaşi, European Institute, 2002; Larry L. Watts,
Ferește-mă, Doamne, de prieteni... Războiul clandestin al Blocului Sovietic cu România,
București, Rao Publishing House, 2012; Gabriel Stelian Manea, Un adulter în familia
comunistă. România și SUA în anii '60 [An adultery in the communist family. Romania and
USA in the 1960s], Târgoviște, Cetatea de Scaun Publishing House, 2016.

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an instrument of international propaganda was supported by the Romanian

Patriarchy in different church religious forums.28
And indeed, Pope Paul VI has continued, for the following two years,
the Second Vatican Council, also insisting with the invitations addressed to the
Orthodox Churches. On July 9th, 1963, for instance, the Patriarch of Romania
was informed that the second session of the Council was to start on September
29th, and two trustworthy observers from the Romanian Patriarchy were
expected and welcomed to these works. This new invitation, signed by the same
Cardinal Bea, was a more detailed one, like in an attempt to convince the
Leader of the Romanian Orthodox Church of the statute not at all marginal
that these observers had. They were not mere spectators, “participating to all
general assemblies of the Council, through weekly reunions organized with the members of the
Secretariat, bishops and theologians were able to communicate their opinions and points of
view on topics discussed during the Council.” These observers, as the works of the first
session have shown, were not at all ignored, avoided or isolated, in exchange
“they had all liberty to personally contact the council fathers”. All these, continued
Cardinal Bea, “have represented the occasion to create an authentic brotherly dialogue”.29
In addition to these clarifications, as previously tried, the secretary of
the Secretariat for Promoting the Cristian Unity, Father Willebrands, was willing
to pay a visit to Patriarch Justinian to confirm the invitation and to offer all
needed details. All these efforts and persistence had as justification and reason,
according to the letters sent by Vatican, the words of Jesus Christ “that they all
may be one” (John 17:21) and were considered by the pope an imperative of the
times for the “growth of understanding and of the esteem between those baptized in the
name of Christ and that are spiritually united in Eucharist”.30
This second invitation was more attentively analyzed by the Romanian
authorities, passing past several decisional forums, from the Department of

28
Even from the end of the 1940s, as the ideological conflict between East and West was
intensified, the Church was also imposed this type of speech supporting the global peace,
and the occasions for it to be put to practice were not few. For instance, at the first World
Congress of Peace that took place at Prague on April 20th and on Paris on April 25th, 1949,
Patriarch Justinian has sent a message of peace subsequently also read in the churches
around the country. Even more convincing is a pastoral of the Patriarch from February 1950,
in which he was addressing the defense of the peace: “…the enemies of peace gather with
those who conspire against the lives of the peace lovers and of the workers around the
whole world. At the outpost of this assembly are the suitcases with money of the United
States and of England. Yet the friends and defenders of peace also get together (…) and
their assembly is the assembly of peace and democracy having in the first line the great
Soviet Union, the neighbor and friend of the Romanian people”. Lucian N. Leuștean,
Orthodoxy and the Cold War. Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947-1965,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p. 93-94.
29
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr.. 20/1962, f. 12.
30
Ibidem, f. 13.

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Cults to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to the highest echelons of the
party. At the request of the Secretary General of the Department, Dumitru
Dogaru, Mircea Malița which was the deputy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs
was stating even since March 1963 that the participation of a Romanian
Orthodox Delegation to the works would certainly have some advantages,
being able to contribute to a more precise understanding of the discussed
topics, to the improvement of relations with catholic states and to preventing
some reactions hostile to Romania. This favorable approval of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and this last justification of not encouraging “reactionary
circles”, have determined Dumitru Dogaru also to propose the participation of
some orthodox yet also catholic delegates, in case those would be carefully
chosen and trained by competent bodies. Yet the final decision was unfavorable
and it came from Emil Bodnăraș, member of the Political Bureau of the
Romanian Workers Party and vice-president of the Council of Ministers, the
one that was recommending prudence in dealing with the issue, which can be
expressed into the interdiction of participating to the works.31 It is also true that
when he has decided not to send representatives to the second session either,
the Romanian Orthodox Church has also used the decisions of the Second Pan-
Orthodox Conference in Rhodes, that took place in September 1963, decisions
which were giving the autocephalous Churches the liberty to decide in this
respect, the only indication being that of informing each other.32
In the end, the requests from Vatican remained without answer since
two years later, in May 1965, Willebrands, now bishop of Mauriana, was
expressing again his wish to visit Romania and to have a hearing with Patriarch
Justinian, with the occasion of the preparation of the fourth session of the
Second Vatican Council.33 Even if the letter was proposing also a calendar of
this trip, the answer received from His Holiness Antim Târgovișteanul, the
patriarchal vicar, was a glacial one: “The exterior visits schedule of our Church is
already set for the next months and it is excessively busy”.34 The truth is that the
moment did not allow such maneuvers and visits that would prove full of
consequences, and the reluctance of the hierarchy of the Romanian Orthodox
Church, in line with the Department of Cults, is explainable. Gheorghe
Gheorghiu-Dej had just died and things were to settle, with Nicolae Ceaușescu
newly become prime-secretary of PMR (Romanian Workers’ Party); priorities
had to be redefined and hierarchized. A meeting with a representative of the

31
Ovidiu Bozgan, op. cit., p. 139-140.
32
This pan-orthodox conference has yet unanimously decided the beginning of an open
dialogue, from equal positions, between the Orthodox Church and the Roman-Catholic one.
Viorel Ioniță, op. cit., p. 170-171.
33
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 20/1962, f. 18.
34
Ibidem, f. 20.

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Holy See, could be the sign of reopening the bilateral relations, which for the
moment was not recommended.
In spite the obviously cold tone addressed to the Romanian Patriarchy
the invitation to send observer-delegates also to the last of the sessions of the
Council, the fourth one that was to start on September 14th 1965, was yet
received. Cardinal Bea assured that “the delegate observers of Your Church will be
greeted with brotherly love, in case You and Your Church decide that it is possible to send
them”.35
The answer for this last invitation sent only in September, although it
did not represent an explicit refuse, it implied that the observers of the
Romanian Orthodox Church will not be present not even to this last session.
The letter of His Holiness Antim Târgovișteanul, after the wishes of success for
these last works of the Council, yet reiterated the hope that the results of this
session would “open real perspectives in view of the closeness and collaboration of the
Christian Churches…”.36 The Romanian Patriarchy thus remained the only church
among the similar ones which did not accept to send delegates, even if,
following a meeting between cardinal Bea and Patriarch Athenagoras, in April
1965, the latter was willing to accept for the Ecumenical Patriarchy to be
represented in Rome, and even recommended this to the other Orthodox
Churches.37
The conclusion is that to none of these invitation, as formal as they
were, did the Romanian Orthodox Church sent a delegate-observer, in view of
the works of the Sacred Council. Moreover, some of the proposals have
remained, just like that and deliberately, with no answer and no explanations or
justifications. The truth is that it was not the Patriarchy that had drawn the line
guiding the relation with this Council, it had not elaborate a program, nor did it
impose an approach, yet all these were created within the premises of the
Department of the Cults by the Council of the Ministers and imposed to the
Church. The leaders from Bucharest did not escape their old fear that a loyal
Church, even obedient to an exterior center of power like Vatican, was outside
the control of the local authority and could be nothing but hostile to the
regime, a totalitarian regime self-defined as atheist. As a consequence, the
participation of a Romanian Church by sending some delegates to the works of
the Second Vatican Council would have represented, in the opinion of the
management of the Department of Cults, a strategy error which would have
undermined the entire policy concerning the strict control of the cults in
Romania. On the other side, the confessional conditions in Romania were more
delicate than that of other orthodox countries. The regime from Bucharest had

35
Ibidem, f. 21.
36
Ibidem, f. 32.
37
Ovidiu Bozgan, op. cit., p. 141.

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A MISSED OPPORTUNITY:
THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

dissolved the Greek-Catholic Church and this abuse had not only consequences
at institutional clergy level, yet also of legal and patrimonial nature, leading to
the degradation and dissolution of diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The
Romanian leaders, both the political ones and the hierarchy of the Church had
to consider many such aspects, and it appeared that the participation to the
Council was not opportune.
This is the explanation for the silence of the Romanian Patriarchy to the
numerous requests mentioned above, a silence that yet was not justified and
grounded explicitly in none of the few answers that have returned to Vatican.
Yet the excuses meant as justifications may be discovered at a careful reading,
often between the lines, of some documents produced by the Department of
Cults during, and especially after the closing of the Council works. These
justifications, as we will show, are related to another obsession of the regime in
terms of cults, namely the Greek-Catholic issue, of the dissolution of Greek-
Catholic Church in 1948, an abuse of the communist regime with echoes in the
entire catholic world and obviously, in Vatican. The fear that this issue could
become a topic of debates, and that after only 15 years, rightful complaints not
yet solved could surface again, was in the center of the refuse and has
represented the main justification on which the absence imposed to the
delegates of the Romanian Orthodox Church was grounded.
For instance, a notice from October 12th 1963, signed by the very
secretary general of the Departments of Cults, Dumitru Dogaru, was detailing
the issue of the participation of Romano-Catholic and orthodox delegates from
Romania to the first sessions of the Council. The warning launched by Dogaru
was about the fact that from the part of the Romano-Catholics in Romania
nobody, and first of all not Bishop Marton Aron, did request to participate to
the works of the Council. According to the Department of Cults this was a
shifty strategy so that Romania would be the only country not sending delegate-
observers38, thus drawing attention on itself and becoming “the object of a special
concern from the part of the circles interested in discrediting our country, of tendentious
comments and even direct or indirect instigations in international forums”. Internally, the
consequences could have been just as unpleasant, expressed by the
“intensification of the Roman-Catholic religious life, of the catechesis of the young, of the
growing number of participants to different religious manifestations, especially pilgrimages”.
Such a status quo was dangerous to the representatives of the Department
since, in their opinion, the Roman-Catholic clergy was aiming at generating a
status of “tension and reticence towards our democrat popular organization” amongst the
catholic believers, even more dangerous since most of them were Hungarian
and German. Moreover – and this is the great fear of the regime in terms of
confessional realities in Romania – in such an atmosphere “we can also expect

38
Indeed, catholic delegates from all socialist countries, even from USSR had been present
to the first session of the Second Vatican Council.

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actions from the part of some individuals from the group of the former Greek-Catholic
believers especially from those hundreds of Greek-Catholic priests which have not returned to
orthodoxy”. Obviously, among those were also “former exploiting and manist
individuals” who would have also had political reasons to produce disorders and
a negative image of Romania outside the country.39 The cynical calculus of the
magnate communists was correct considering that even since 1963, by decree
no. 767, the liberation of political prisoners had started40, many of them being
members of the National Peasant Party and Transylvanians of Greek-Catholic
confession.
The general image that this situation could have brought and the very
fact the Department of Cults wanted to avoid was that the regime at Bucharest
would interdict such a participation, reason enough for the second session of
the Council to propose “for a contact to be made between the Vatican and somebody from
the part of the Roman-Catholic Church”, possibly in the person of Francisc Augustin,
the one that leaded the Roman-Catholic Archiepiscopate in Bucharest and
which could have exceptionally requested himself to participate and to offer the
explanations needed to expose at Vatican “the negativist and obstructionist position of
Marton Aron and to show that the entire responsibility of the non-participation of the
Catholics in Romania to the Council in Vatican belongs to this person”.41
Concerning the Romanian Orthodox Church and its non-participation
to the first session of the Council, the Department of Cults was neither worried
nor did it look for its own faults, given the fact that the majority of the
orthodox churches had decided not to send observers and thus their absence
“could not have been imputed to our state administration”.42
Yet, only after the closing of the works were the real motives of the
non-participation of the Romanian orthodox delegates brought to light in

39
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 1/1958-1973, f. 7-8.
40
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Interior, during 1962 and 1964 15,035
political prisoners were released. Ilarion Ţâu, Discriminare în perioada comunistă. Viața
deținuților politici legionari după eliberarea din închisori [Discrimination in communist
times. The life of legionary political prisoners after the liberation from prison], in “Sfera
politicii”, volume XX, no. 2(168), March-April 2012, p. 119. Among the liberated ones
were the Greek-Catholic bishops Ioan Cherteș, Ioan Dragomir, George Guțiu, Iuliu Hirțea,
Ioan Ploscaru and a series of Greek-Catholic priests that have survived prison: Eugen
Foișor, Ioan Georgescu, Vasile Gherman, Vasile Hotico, Aurel Leluțiu, Nicolae Lupea,
Ștefan Manciulea, George Mangra, Gheorghe Marina, Virgil Maxim, Gheorghe Morna,
Natanail Munteanu. After the liberation some of them have continued to serve clandestinely.
See Cicerone Ionițoiu, Martiri și mărturisitori ai Bisericii din România (1945-1989).
Biserica Română Unită cu Roma, Greco-Catolică, Biserica Romano-Catolică [Martyrs and
confessors of the Church in Romania (1945-1989). The Romanian Church United with
Rome, the Greek-Catholic, the Roman-Catholic Church], Cluj-Napoca, “Viața Creștină”
Publishing House, 2001.
41
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 1/1958-1973, f. 8.
42
Ibidem.

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A MISSED OPPORTUNITY:
THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

different analyses and releases of the Department of Cults which has succeeded
in imposing the Romanian Orthodox Church a distant attitude, to say the least.
In a release from February 8th 1966, dedicated to the Second Vatican Council,
the Department of Cults was summarizing the position of the various
confessions to this event. It is fundamental to remember that this reticent,
prudent, and distant attitude of the Romanian Orthodox Church was one
dictated by the Department, as it appears from the present notice: “The
Department of Cults mentions that the reticent general position of the churches towards
Vatican was not an easy thing”. Efforts were paid for the enthusiasm of some to be
attenuated, for the eulogies of others to be tempered, “there were equivoques, the
inclination to embrace the catholic point of view and to defend it or promote it were expressed
by many clerics and temporary even by some bishops, especially in the first years of the
Council”. Not few were the orthodox, bishops, clerics and laymen regarding the
council “as a manifestation meant to increase the prestige of the Church worldwide and to
make of it an important factor of the present world. The ecumenical manifestations of the
Council have represented for some the approaching perspective of the unification of churches
and have initiated a certain optimism at individuals willing to see the Church either in the
position of counteracting the new social order or at least of appearing in front of it with a
perspective of higher expectations”.43
Yet, such hopes, the manifest optimism, the adhesion to the objectives
of the Council had to be fought against and eventually eradicated as
“unhealthy” for the general policy concerning the religious cults in Romania.
Consequently, the followers of different cults in the entire country, the
Department as a whole, had to make efforts to give the most convenient
direction to the regime and they have succeeded brilliantly here and there, as it
comes out from the same notice: “Without omitting the fact that the orientation of
Vatican has registered some positive changes in the present issues of the contemporaneity and
in the first place in the issue of peace, yet the orthodox and protestant churches from our
country have permanently underlined that the Roman-Catholic Church continues to have its
traditional centralist character, that it wants to turn the ecumenism into a way for the other
churches to return to the «sole stable», that the proper climate for a sincere and open dialogue
with the Church was not created, that the Vatican wants to use the present willingness of the
believers for understanding and closeness in the advantage of its tendencies for supremacy and
proselytism”.44
Moreover, other two aspects of the politics of Vatican were annoying
for Bucharest, namely the fact that those who regarded with enthusiasm the
discussions about the unity of the Christians have understood them as “a war
line facing the «atheist communism»45, as defined by Athenagoras, Patriarch of

43
Ibidem, f. 19.
44
Ibidem, f. 20.
45
At some point there was an opinion, initiating from the United States, according to which
such a council is an anticommunist one, a request to line up all Christians against

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Constantinople and as underlined, from time to time, during the council”, and especially
the recurrent opening of the discussion about the Greek-Catholic Church, since
“the same Vatican does not want to hear about the fact that the Greek –Catholics have
returned to the Orthodox Church”.
The next years following the closing of the Council, the Department has
imposed the Patriarchy to justify the absence from the works by refusing to
accept the existence of a Greek-Catholic “issue” in Romania, of discussing
about it, blaming Vatican for missing no opportunity in making a problem out
of it. For instance, a synthetizing notice of the Department of Cults from April
1st 1966 which exposed in more details the situation of the former Greek-
Catholic Church, did not shy away from accusing that “the works of the Second
Vatican Council were also used for the reactivation of the issue of uniatism in our country”. It
is shown that the bishops clandestinely ordained and amnestied from prisons in
1964 had been invited to participate to the works of the Council fact that
represented an affront. Even more serious “at each of the sessions of the Second
Vatican Council religious services were organized in Rome during which it was mentioned the
«strangling of the Greek-Catholic Church in Romania»”. Under such circumstances the
“runagate bishop Vasile Cristea (in 1960 the Vatican had appointed him in Rome as
Greek-Catholic bishop A/N) had spoken in hostile terms addressed to our state and to
the Orthodox Church”.46 The ending of the document also enclosed some
proposals which interdicted the Romanian Orthodox Church to positively
respond to the requests made by the Holy See and prevented it from having
contacts with it “unless Vatican definitively gave up the actions taken in favor of rebuilding
the Greek-Catholic cult”. As a justification was imposed the use of the very theses
adopted during the Council, like those of the respect between confessions, the
“dialogue of love” in view of the unity of the Christians, of the religious
freedom.
Under these circumstances the Romanian Orthodox Church and the
Patriarch himself had nothing left to do but to follow this conduct, to reduce as
much as possible the contacts with representatives of Vatican and to refuse
their visits to our country. Four years after the first attempts, bishop
Willebrands was not yet allowed a visit to Romania and, as his requests kept on
arriving, the Department of Cults has considered as opportune for Patriarch
Justinian to prepare a justification response. Thus, the answer draft sent for
approval in September 1966 was mentioning a meeting of the Leader of the
Romanian Orthodox Church with the Papal Legate in London, Archbishop
Igino Cardinale, during which the first would have been reassured that “the

communism, in some kind of new modern “crusade”. The fact that during the preparatory
stages of the council Archbishop Fisher of Canterbury has visited Pope John XXIII and the
president of the Secretariat for Promoting the Christian Unity, namely Cardinal Bea, has
fueled this speculation. Bernard Pawley, op. cit., p. 70-71.
46
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 88/ 1966, f. 56.

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A MISSED OPPORTUNITY:
THE ROMANIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL

Church of Rome understands to resume the brotherly relations with all Orthodox Churches
without any claim of preeminence, from positions of Evangelical equality and without further
discussions with these Churches on topics from the past, considering them as definitively
solved, like the case of the former Greek-Catholic Church in Romania, returned to the heart
of the Romanian Orthodox Church”. On this occasion, Patriarch Justinian has
requested for this position of Vatican to be made official “through releases of the
official Roman-Catholic bodies, and through the Vatican radio station”, the response
concerning the visits of representatives of the Holy See in Romania depending
on this.47
Straightforwardly, the reason for which the Romanian Orthodox Church
had not sent delegates to the Catholic Council was clearly declared in a study
from 1967 of the Department of cults dedicated to international relations of
Vatican from which we learn that “the Romanian Orthodox Church has showed,
during eclesiatic meetings, that it does not agree to engage into the so called dialogue with the
Catholics since those had not given up the issue of the Greek-Catholics in Romania. For the
same reason the Romanian Orthodox Church has refused to honor the invitation of Vatican
to participate to the Second Vatican Council”.48 Even when the Roman-Catholic
representatives were received as guests of Patriarch Justinian, as it was the case
of bishop of Regensburg, Rudolf Graber, visiting Romania during April 4 – 8,
1970, the same sharp explanation was offered to them, namely that “the attitude
of Vatican of pretending to rebuild uniatism in Romania, as the manifestations of catholic
proselytism, opposite to the principles of ecumenism, determine this position”, as shown in
an information note of the Department concerning the visit.49
The only one of the Orthodox Churches which did not send observer-
delegates to the Second Vatican Council, the Romanian Orthodox Church, has
missed the opportunity of an ecumenical opening, very fashionable for that
time and which, in addition, would have relieved it from many outright
accusations, reproofs and attacks. On one hand it was a victim of the imposed
control and of decisions taken by the political and administrative bodies of the
time, first of all by the Department of Cults, and on the other hand we must
mention that Romanian Patriarchy has hidden and even has felt comfortable
behind these imperatives of the regime. A common fear has united the Church
and the atheist state in this cause, namely the fear that the issue of the former
Greek-Catholic Church would reappear as one of not only ecclesiastic interest, yet
also political, at internal and international level.

47
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 13/1966, f. 7-9.
48
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 157/1967, f. 12.
49
ANR, Fond Ministerul Cultelor și Artelor, dosar nr. 1/1958-1973, f. 91.

140