ÎNTĂRIND VECHI ALTERITĂŢI, RIDICÂND NOI FRONTIERE: CONCORDATUL DINTRE ROMÂNIA ŞI VATICAN – 1929
CONSOLIDATING OLD ALTERITIES, DRAWING NEW FRONTIERS: TH E CONCORDATE BETWEEN ROMANIA AND VATICAN 1929

Summary/Abstract: Consolidating Old Alterities, Drawing New Frontiers: The Concordate between Romania and Vatican 1929. After the First World War, the Catholic Church in Romania as well as the Romanian Orthodox Church sustained the activity of strengthening the confessional identity of their own faithful using largely the argument of alterity, presenting the danger of losing the faith of their ancestors and indicating the “enemy” without any ambiguity. One of the moments that provoked a lot of tensions in both sides, Orthodox and Catholic, was the signing of the Concordat between Romania and Vatican, negotiated along several years and concluded in 1929. This act, that had as consequence the significant consolidation of the Catholic Church in Romania, was disapproved intensively by the Orthodox hierarchy but also by the clergy in general, claiming the threat represented by the Concordat for the Romanian Orthodoxy. The debate was intense in the laic and church press but also inside the central and local ecclesiastical institutions. We can mention the numerous memorandums of protest addressed to the government, sent by the districtual clergy all around Romania. This moment had as consequence the deepening of the breach between Orthodox and Catholics in Romania, raising new barriers to the inter-confessional dialogue. It brought into attention the concrete reality of the relation between the two churches.

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