Abstract
Confessional identity is a construct in the longue durée, formed and sustained by the ecclesiastical hierarchy and by the clergy1 through a well-defined discourse of identity. The identity discourse of an institutional church has an official character, insofar as it is formulated and transmitted by clerical elites. The sequence usually involves clergy first attaining a certain level of spiritual and intellectual training, then the formulation of a message of identity, and finally the transmission of that message to the faithful. The message is “controlled, selected, organized and redistributed”2 by its authors, in order to serve specific aims and needs, which can change as it is addressed to each successive generation. The methods of transmission include preaching, catechism, canonical visitations and pastoral activity, religious literature, sacred images, pamphlets, booklets, calendars, and, since the mid-nineteenth century, the religious press. In the process of constructing the identity message, the constitutive elements of church identity (denomination, rite, tradition, institutional structure, historical past, the relation between church and nation, and otherness) are assimilated in progressive stages and degrees.
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Notes
For this idea, see: E. Van der Zweerde, “Beyond Occidentism and Philosophic Geography: Reflections on Europe’s Eastern Border,” in The New Europe. Uncertain Identity and Borders, M. Kowalska, ed. (Bialystok, 2007), pp. 48–49. Also see the study of W. Reinhard, who used the concept of Konfessionsbildung. W. Reinhard, “Disciplinamento sociale, confessionalizzazione, modernizzazione. Un discorso storiografico; in Disciplina dell” anima, disciplina del corpo e disciplina della società tra medioevo ed età moderna, P. Prodi, ed. (Bologna, Societä editrice il Mulino, 1994), pp. 101–123.
M. Foucault, Ordinea discursului. Un discurs despre discurs (Bucureşti, 1998), p. 15.
In support of this idea, see: S. Nicoară and T. Nicoară, Mentalităţi colective şί imaginar social. Istoria şi noile paradigme ale cunoaşterii (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Presa Universitară Clujeană, 1996), pp. 198–200; or S. Mitu, “De la Imaginea Celuilalt la geografiile simbolice: trasee metodologice,” in Identitate şi alteritate. Studίί de istorie politicä şi culturalä, Vol. 3, N. Bocşan, S. Mitu, and T. Nicoarä eds., (Cluj-Napoca, 2002), pp. 9–14.
J. Meyendorff, Biserica Ortodoxa ieri si azi (Bucuresti: Ed. Anastasia, 1996), pp. 81–82.
B. Murgescu, “Confessional Polemics and Political Imperatives in the Romanian Principalities (Late 17th—early 18th Centuries),” in Church & Socίety in Central and Eastern Europe, M. Cräciun and O. Ghitta eds., (Cluj-Napoca: European Studies Foundation Publishing House, 1998), pp. 174–175.
M. Păcurariu, Legäturile Bisericii Ortodoxe din Transilvania cu Tara Românească şί Moldova in secolele XVII–XVIII, Sibiu, 1968, p. 42;
I. Mateiu, “O carte din 1699 contra desbinării religioase,” Revista Teologiă 28:7–8 (1938), 299–302.
The issue of national development provoked a long and complex debate in Romanian society, which began in the mid-nineteenth century and continued in various forms into the interwar period. The historian Keith Hitchins presented these two main directions as follows: “The first, inspired from the model and the experience of the West would have led to industrialization and urbanization, causing major change at all the layers of the society; the second perspective started from the agrarian past of Romania and focused on the preservation of the traditional social structures and of cultural values.” In the nineteenth century, this situation was reflected in the debate between the members of the group Junimea, led by Titu Maiorescu (the theory of the forms without the ground) and then the cultural and political trends of Poporanism and Sămănătorism, on one hand, and the liberals on the other; in the interwar period, this was the debate between the Europeanists (Eugen Lovinescu, Ştefan Zeletin) on one hand, and the Traditionalists (the group around the magazine Gândirea—represented by Nichifor Crainic, its editor between 1926 and 1944 and the main theoretician of “Orthodoxism”; the philosopher Lucian Blaga; the philosopher Nae Ionescu, who published his views in the magazine Cuvintul, the theoretician of “träirism,” a Romanian version of existentialism). See: K. Hitchins, România 1866–1947, ed. II (Bucureşti: Ed. Humanitas, 1998), pp. 67–99, 292–332;
E. Pintea, “A Leading Publication: Gândirea,” Transylvanian Review 7:3 (1998), 124–131;
N. Sălcudeanu, “Present Day Reverberations of the Traditionalism—Nationalism—Orthodoxism Synthesis Professed by Gândirea Magazine,” in Ethnicity and Religion in Central and Eastern Europe, M. Crăciun and O. Ghitta, eds., (Cluj-Napoca: Cluj University Press, 1995), pp. 338–344.
On the evolution of the Rom OC after 1918, see: Al Moraru, Biserica Ortodoxă Română între anii 1885–2000. Biserică. Naţiune. Cultură, vol. III, tome I (Bucureşti, 2006), pp. 90–148;
S. Trîncă, “Constituţia din 1923 şi Biserica Ortodoxä,” in Anuarul Facultăţii de Teologie Ortodoxă din cadrul Universităţii Babeş-Bolyai Cluj-Napoca, tome VII, 2002–2004, pp. 144–151.
I.-V. Leb, Ortodoxie şi Vechi-Catolicism (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Presa Universitară Clujeană, 1996), pp. 67–150; M. Păcurariu, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3 (sec. XIX–XX) (Bucureşti: Ed. Institutului Biblic şi de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, 1994), pp. 476–478; Al Moraru, Biserica Ortodoxă Romănă intre anii 1885–2000, vol. III, tome II, pp. 235–298; A.-A. Podaru, “Mişcarea ecumenică. De la Edinburgh (1910) la Amsterdam (1948),” in Ortodoxie şi ecumenism, I. V. Leb, ed., (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Renaşterea, 2008), pp. 19–27.
Out of some 80 Romanian newspapers and magazines that were issued after 1850 until the end of the nineteenth century, 12 can be described as church journals. Of those, 5 came from the Orthodox environment: Biserica şi şcoala (Arad, 1877); Foaia diecezană (Caransebeş, 1886); Lumina (Arad, 1872); Speranţa (Arad, 1869); Telegraful Român (Sibiu, 1853). M. Bedecean, Presa şi bisericile româneşti din Transilvania (1865–1873) (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Presa Universitară Clujeană, 2010), p. 18. The Amvonul magazine, issued in Oradea from 1868 under the supervision of Iustin Popfiu, had a strictly theological and religious character and was addressed to Orthodox and Greek Catholics alike, which made it an exception in the religious Romanian press. See Bedecean, Presa şi bisericile româneşti din Transilvania (1865–1873), pp. 26–27.
For a general presentation of the Orthodox press in the interwar period, see M. Păcurariu, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, pp. 466–467; I. V. Leb, “Presa bisericeascä transilvăneană,” in Biserică şi implicare: studii privind istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Románe (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Limes, 2000), pp. 97–115.
For information on the life and activity of Archmandrite Iuliu Scriban, see M. Päcurariu, Dicţionarul Teologilor Români (Bucureşti: Ed. Enciclopedică, 2002), pp. 432–434.
The Romanian Orthodox press participated actively in the debate on the Concordat, expressing its virulent, active, and constant protest. The press argued that the Concordat was a threat to both the Romanian stata and the Orthodox Church, which was severely disadvantaged by it. It further condemned the political influence of the Vatican. For the way these issues were reflected in the Cluj journal Renaşterea, see C. Ghişa, “Întărind vechi alteritäţi, ridicând noi frontiere: Concordatul dintre România şi Vatican—1929,” Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai, Theologia Catholica LV: 4 (2010), 43–56.
For a general presentation of the situation of the Catholic Church of both rites in interwar Romania, see I. M. Bucur, Din istoria Bisericii Greco-Catolice Române (1918–1953) (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Accent, 2003), pp. 29–77.
See C. Ghisa, Biserica Greco-Catolica din Transilvania 1700–1850. Elaborarea discursului identitar (Cluj-Napoca: Ed. Presa Universitara Clujeana, 2006), pp. 255–260.
Ion Alexandru Mizgan, “De ce Ortodoxia?” [Why Orthodoxy?], Renaşterea 8:4 (1997), p. 9.
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Ghişa, C. (2014). The Image of the Roman Catholic Church in the Orthodox Press of Romania, 1918–1940. In: Krawchuk, A., Bremer, T. (eds) Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377388_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137377388_8
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