The Devil's Confessors: Priests, Communists, Spies, and Informers

Abstract

The article charts the efforts of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the country's largest religious denomination, to block the public exposure of the names of priests and prelates who collaborated with the dreaded communist secret political police, the Securitate, by informing on other priests, disclosing information obtained from believers during confession or supporting communist antireligious policies. The article identifies four types of attitudes toward the Securitate of members of the Romanian Orthodox clergy, presents the arguments in favor of and against the public exposure of tainted priests, examines the recent revelations regarding the controversial past of Patriarch Teoctist, and investigates the Church's efforts to impose amendments to the Romanian transitional justice legislation that would exempt priests from being investigated by the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archive.

The Democratic Transition of Post-Communist Europe

“…While the Serbian Orthodox Church was the first of the all religious organisations in multi-ethnic Yugoslavia "to reach a modus vivendi" with the communist regime (Ramet, 1998: 162) the almost complete subordination of the church to government structures (who even "appointed" Patriarchs themselves) in Bulgaria and Romania has been well documented (Angi, 2011;Broun, 2000;Ramet, 1998: Chapters 7 and 12;Stan and Turcescu, 2005). Moreover, the very foundation of the fourth national Orthodox Church in the Balkans, the Macedonian Church, was primarily as a result of the strong involvement of Tito's regime (Ramet, 1998: Chapter 6).…”

Party Agency and the Religious—Secular Cleavage in Post-Communist Countries: The Case of Romania

“…Thus, in the years following the 1996 defeat, PSD has made a conscious effort to appear more traditionalist in its social values stances and less hostile to religion (Stan and Turcescu, 2005). Such shifts on the part of PSD have likely had significant effects on voters' perceptions of the parties, making PSD appear as a more viable contender among religious voters.While not featuring as prominently in the campaign as economic issues, the fact that issues of religion were discussed actively by the parties attests to the importance of winning this base of voters as perceived by party elites, who in turn sought to win such voters by providing cues to demonstrate that the party shared religious voters' values.…”

“…With such an active clergy, and because most Romanians belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church, politicians are eager to cater to religious voters. Parties will often employ religious and national symbols and attempt to remain favourable within the eyes of the Church by stating their support for the Church's self-defined role in society (Stan and Turcescu, 2005; Turcescu and Stan, 2005). Unlike countries such as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, however – which have stable policy dimensions with clearly defined policy spaces for moral traditionalism and other issues of import to religious voters (Kitschelt et al , 1999) – religious issues have not been ‘owned’ (Petrocik, 1996) by any one particular political party, as Orthodoxy creates the political space in which parties of both left and right are able to compete effectively for religious individuals' support and many parties realise they must adopt stances that do not offend all religious voters in order to remain electorally viable.…”

“…The competition for religious voters has intensified over time as PSD has intensified its appeals for religious voters' support. During and since the 2004 election campaign, Traian Băsescu – leader of the rightist coalition, the Truth and Justice Alliance (and eventually, President of Romania) – has been dogged by his morally permissive attitudes related to his stated support for homosexual rights and for the legalisation of prostitution (Stan and Turcescu, 2005). Although Băsescu used religious symbols and made clear allusions to his own faith in the 2004 campaign, PSD also made use of such symbols and has tried to position itself among religious voters as the party most closely in line with religious themes (including issues of Romanian identity linked to the revered position of the Orthodox Church) by attacking Băsescu and his co-partisans.…”

“…Thus, in the years following the 1996 defeat, PSD has made a conscious effort to appear more traditionalist in its social values stances and less hostile to religion (Stan and Turcescu, 2005). Such shifts on the part of PSD have likely had significant effects on voters' perceptions of the parties, making PSD appear as a more viable contender among religious voters.…”