Brief summary of the relationships between Romania and Vatican. The problem of the Concordate
Autor: Marius Bârlianu
One of the controversed events of our recent past is the conclusion of the Concordate between Romania and Vatican, on Mayy 10 the, 1927. .An examination of the existing documents regarding Romania’s relationships with Vatican reveals the fact that most of them reflect a certain confessional or theological position. This work intends to approach the matter from a conservative point of view, a non-confessional one. At its background it stands, however, a Christian philosophy regarding history. Due to the fact that the Church’s situation can’t be correctly understood without knowing the political, economic, social and intellectual situation of every historical epoch, in this work the events connected with Church’s history are presented in connection with the secular background.
The coexistence of the Catholic structures in parallel with the Orthodox structures in Romania, rase problems of economical right and the imposing of the jurisdictions implies their situation in the plan of state politics. This situation revealed a necessity with implications in international law and imposed a reglementation that the Romanian state has claimed even since 1860: the Concordate, concluded on May 10 th, 1927 and practically finalised in 1929, after stormy debate.
The situation of the Greek-catholics and Roman-catholics is natural in the Romanian state generally through The Law of Cults (1928) available for all the cults on the country’s territory and this was due to the Concordate with Vatican, signed under the governement of general Averescu, in 1927. The regulation of the Constitution (1923) and The Law of Cults have settled the rights and the obligation of the Cults and the Christians no other law has enclosed the religions liberty. All the recognised religions have been represented by their superior priests, in the Parliament. The country’s laws admitted the existence of two national churches, the Orthodox and the Greek-catholic one, as a historical reality and have assured the religious liberty to all the nationalities living in Romania in the spirit of the Decision from Alba-Iulia.
After the diplomatic relationships between Romania and Vatican have been restarted in 1920, after acreditting a Pope’s messenger in Romania and a plenipontentiary Romanian minister at Vatican all the governements from Bucharest were concerned with getting to an agreement with the Pope’s State. During the negociation, the Prime-Ministers and the Cult ministers from Romania have permanently tried to defend the national interests but also not to attack those of the Catholics’ and Greek-catholics ones. There were many projects for a Concordate made by each side. In the end, on May 10 the, 1927 it was signed the International Convention between Romania and Vatican during the governement of general Averescu while the Cult minister was V. Goldis. The Concordate will be ratified by the Romanian Parliament only in May, 1929 during I. Maniu’s governement and the Cult minister A. Vlad.