In a certain sense, Christian Vasile’s book Between the Vatican and the Kremlin. The Greek Catholic Church during the communist regime (Publishing house letterBucharest, 2023) is a vingt ans après.

This edition appeared twenty years after the appearance of the previous one, which also saw the light with the support of Bishop Virgil Berchi of Oradea, only a year after the first version dated 2003. And if we recall a rather minor detail that In 2013, a research painstaking doctoral dissertation, which became a book by a famous historian from Bucharest, also had eBookit does not seem inappropriate to say Between the Vatican and the Kremlin. The Greek Catholic Church during the communist regime means real bestseller historical writing.

Compared to the 2003 and 2004 editions, in the 2023 edition we also find an extremely useful Epilogue. In fact, a more useful summary regarding Native historical writings and concerns about the recent past of the Greek Catholic Church. A special place in the mentioned afterword is given to the comments on the memoirs, as well as the analysis of the contributions of such researchers as Ioan-Marius Bucur, Mircea Remus Birz, Franciska Beltechanu, Monika Broštjanu, as well as those of historians. to be part of the second and third generation of historians of Orthodoxy (Mirce Pakurariu). Commenting on the significance of the beatification of the seven united bishops – Vasyl Afteni, Valeriu Trajan Frenziu, Ioan Suchiu, Titus-Liviu Chinez, Ioan Balan, Aleksandr Rusa, Iuliu Hoss – which took place on Freedom Square in Blaža on June 2, 2019, cannot be missed either.

I confess that for me, who, although I am not a historian, read with great pleasure and constant interest the volumes dealing with subjects of the greatest importance in the recent history of Romania, reading the volume Between the Vatican and the Kremlin. The Greek Catholic Church during the communist regime acquired special importance. I took the volume, I don’t know if necessarily, as a mirror book. But one check was sure. And this is because, while reading, I was particularly interested in those sections, subsections and passages in which aspects of the relationship between the BOR and the united were analyzed in one way or another. Relations that have not always been very good since 1700, the year of the creation of the Romanian Church united with Rome. Vice versa. There were dark moments, and there were many, both before the ban on the BRSM, dictated by the Romanian communists in 1948 by order of Moscow, a ban camouflaged under the name of the association, and after 1989. Let me remind you that on December 31, 1989, by order-law , issued by the FSN, BRU became legal again. Which, unfortunately, did not mean that the BRU would fully restore its rights, especially those related to the ownership of old religious buildings and property, until the end of 1948. However, this topic of relations between BOR and BRU is also addressed by the Austrian historian Oliver Jens Schmitt in a recently published History of the Romanian Orthodox Church. State Church or Church in the State 1918-1923 (Publishing house Humanitas, Bucharest, 2023. Not quite a good book addressed to BOR. Therefore, it was received hostilely, with shouts, with threatening phrases, with noisy refusals and to a lesser extent with serious analysis by historians close to either the BOR or the Academy, if not even both. Especially by those who have the experience of finding justifications for the moral resignations of some Orthodox hierarchs, resignations carried out accidentally, in the name or under the justification of symphonic relations between the BOR and the institutions of the Romanian state. Be it Government, PCR or even Security. The same Security that persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, even killed many priests, bishops or simple united believers. And because of contempt for the commandments of the Bible.

Repeatedly and, of course, also in the final chapter, Christian Vasile emphasizes the idea that the order to destroy, outlaw, persecute and abolish the BRU came from Moscow. It was implemented by the biggest Romanian communists. Day, Pauker, Teohari Georgescu, Apostol. Whole section (Roman Catholic Churchand Eastern European communists – 1945-1950) documents in lavish detail the idea that the Catholic Church and the Pope have forever intimidated Moscow’s rich. Who did everything possible to present them in the darkest colors and reduce their influence in the common Eastern European space.

In fact, the Vatican was perceived by the Kremlin as an enemy throughout the existence of the communist regime. It is even said that upon hearing the news of the election of Cardinal Voytyla as Pope in October 1978, Yuriy Andropov, then head of the KGB, would have exclaimed: We have a problem! Therefore, it is quite natural that Moscow ordered the dissolution of several Churches united with Rome in Eastern Europe. The most dangerous are considered to be in Ukraine (whose passions were exemplary summarized by Christian Vasile) and Romania. Therefore, the BOR was not at the origin of the idea of ​​abolition, but some of its hierarchs fervently supported it. If Patriarch Nikodym took a moderate position, even more so, this cannot be said, for example, about the Orthodox Metropolitan Mykolai Balan. And not about the patriarchs Justinian Marina, Justin Moisescu or Theoctistus.

The other eight chapters of the book tell about the tragic history of the BRU. By 1947, a deeply connected story –et pour cause- therefore PNT. Three large sequences (Proposals for the unification of the two Romanian Churches. 1944-1947, State of the Greek Catholic Church in 1945-1947, Liquidation of the United Romanian Church – October-December 1948.) tells this tragic story. We find in them another proof that Romania was already almost completely communalized even before the forced abdication of the king, that the PCR, at that time a faithful servant of Moscow, controlled almost everything, especially the power institutions of the Romanian state. The special services, which, as the appendices show, followed with special attention everything that the bishops did, and not only them. The section dedicated to the sermons of Bishop John Suchiu is noteworthy. It is not always pleasant to read the plot about how the Orthodox hierarchs behaved with their Greek-Catholic brothers.

Were there real differences between the treatment of the underground BRU by the regime of Gheorghe Georgiou-Deja and that of Nicolae Ceausescu? Clear answers to this question are formulated in sections Underground survival 1949-1965 and Hostile elements among cults. Greek Catholics in the era of N. Ceausescu. Greek Catholics hoped, taking into account the attitude of Nicolae Ceausescu in August 1968 to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, for visits to the Vatican by Prime Minister Maurer, and later by Ceausescu himself (Elena Ceausescu visited Sistine Chapel), they also created their illusions in the 70s, with the pontificate of John Paul II. However, the communists from Bucharest did not even want to hear about the restoration of the BRU in its natural rights. In the 80s, with the strengthening of Romanian-Hungarian relations, the Romanian communists tried to instrumentalize the memorial-historical contribution of some Greek Catholics, but there is no question of a real improvement in the attitude towards the BRU. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro