Ideological Attempts to Build a Sustainable Program of Ecodomical Decommunistization in Post-1989 Romania by Promoting the Notion of National Identity

Abstract

In December 1989, Communism died in Romania—if not as mentality, it surely met its demise as a political system which had dominated almost every aspect of life in the country for over four decades. Thus, at least in theory, an ideological vacuum was created and concrete steps towards filling it with different values and convictions were supposed to be taken as early as possible. The Romanian Eastern Orthodox Church seized the opportunity and initiated a series of measures which eventually created a distinct perception about what culture, ethnicity, and religion were supposed to mean for whoever identified himself as Romanian. This paper investigates these ideological attempts to decontaminate Romania of its former Communist mentalities by resorting to the concept of ecodomy seen as ‘constructive process’ and the way it can be applied to how the Romanian Eastern Orthodox Church dealt with culture, ethnicity, and religion. In the end, it will be demonstrated that while decommunistization was supposed to be constructive and positive, it proved to be so only for the Romanians whose national identity was defined by their adherence to the Romanian Eastern Orthodox Church and its perspective on culture, ethnicity, and religion. For all other Romanian citizens, however, decommunistization was a process of ‘negative ecodomy’ because their cultural ideas, ethnic origin, or religious convictions were perceived as non-Romanian and non-Orthodox. In attempting to reach decommunistization therefore, the Romanian majority still tends to be xenophobic and even anti-Muslim, as plainly demonstrated by the Bucharest mosque scandal which rocked the country in the summer of 2015.

Legionary Dreams, Visions, and Divine Apparitions in the Communist Prisons: Designing a Fascist Carceral Theophany in Contemporary Romania

“…95 Dissatis ed with the bishops' obedience towards the state and their lack of enthusiasm towards fascists saints, the members of the movement in favour of canonization of legionaries opted to stay in the underground, as a religious and fundamentalist sub-culture of the Romanian Orthodox Church. 96 Hoping to attract new supporters to the legionary cause, the legionary hagiographers spoke to the younger generations about legionary self-sacri ce, and legitimized claims of being the true, anti-Communist Orthodox Church of the fascist splinter group inside the Romanian Orthodoxy. 97 As proof of their claims of being the representatives of the true anti-Communist Orthodoxy and of the validity of legionary hagiography, the unearthed human remains from Aiud, Târgu Ocna, and other places of detention were presented liturgically and ritually by neo-legionary Orthodox clergy as sacred.…”