The Romanian Peace Movements as Ecumenical Initiatives Reflected in “Református Szemle”

Abstract

The Bucharest Conference convened by Iustinian, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, on 23 June 1949 marked the starting point of meetings between the leaders of the Christian and non-Christian faiths in the country, and, according to the higher orders, these conferences took place annually during the communist period that followed, also being known as “peace conferences”. At the first conference, representatives of seven Christian denominations and those of the Jewish and Muslim communities signed a statement expressing their appreciation of religious freedom built on popular democracy and affirmed the equality of the various churches. In this “local ecumenism” that was prescribed by the state, the interconfessional conferences of the Orthodox and Protestant theology professors, which started in 1964 and alternately took place in Bucharest, Cluj, and Sibiu, proved to be very important. The topics of discussions at these conferences were theological issues; there was a forced search for aspects linking the two churches, and the guidelines pre-scribed for the churches by the state apparatus were also introduced. This study analyses the nature of the conference topics, namely the political implications by which “they wanted or had to please the state”. The conference presentations are even more significant as they served as a basis for the annual training of priests and ministers, and the studies were published in the scientific journals of the churches as well.