Orthodox Church in Communist Romania |Part of a series on the|
|Socialist Republic of The Orthodox Church in Communist Romania
was the period in the history of the Romanian Orthodox Church
that spanned between 1947 and 1989, the era in which Romania was
a socialist state. The regime's relationship with the Orthodox
Church was ambiguous: while it declared itself "atheist", it
actively collaborated with the Church, and, during the Ceaușescu
era, the government used the Orthodox Church as part of his
promotion of national identity (see National Communism in
Romania). Marxism-Leninism argued that religion was an
instrument of exploitation and as such, it was to be desired to
be discouraged, hence the anti-religious campaigns in the USSR.
In Romania, under Patriarch Justinian, the Orthodox Church
adjusted itself to support the new Communist government's
"social justice" goals. The Orthodox Church did not protest or
even acknowledge the existence of hundreds of thousands of
Romanians in prisons and labour camps, so