Orthodoxy, religious nationalism, and the Jews in Romania

ABSTRACT This article examines anti-Semitism in Romanian Orthodoxy prior to World War II and during the Romanian Holocaust. Romanian religious ethnonationalism articulated by hierarchs, clergy, and theologians provided the ideological backdrop for government anti-Semitic measures, underpinned the ideology of a violent religious-fascist organisation, and fostered a social ethos and suspension of morality which facilitated participation of Orthodox clergy and faithful in the mistreatment of Jews. Subsequently, the Church sought to conceal its role in the persecution of the Jews, portraying itself as a powerless victim of fascism. The paper advances a fivefold typology of a majority church behaviour towards religious and ethnic minorities, and concludes that the attitude of the Romanian Orthodox Church towards Jews in the 1930s and during World War II was largely one of approval, connivance, and collusion with discrimination and violence, to the detriment of the universality of the Gospel and the Church, and Christian charity.