Devils Confessors

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10.1177/0888325404272454The Devils ConfessorsEast European Politics and Societies

The Devils Confessors: Priests,

Communists, Spies, and InformersLavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu*

The article charts the efforts of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the coun-trys largest religious denomination, to block the public exposure of thenames of priests and prelates who collaborated with the dreaded commu-nist secret political police, the Securitate, by informing on other priests, dis-closing information obtained from believers during confession or support-ing communist antireligious policies. The article identifies four types ofattitudes toward the Securitate of members of the Romanian Orthodox

clergy, presents the arguments in favor of and against the public exposureof tainted priests, examines the recent revelations regarding the controver-sial past of Patriarch Teoctist, and investigates the Churchs efforts toimpose amendments to the Romanian transitional justice legislation thatwould exempt priests from being investigated by the National Council forthe Study of Securitate Archive.

Keywords: Romanian Orthodox Church; Securitate; transitional justice;political police; collaboration

Father Ionica*, if the devil writes on a piece of paper God exists andsigns, dont sign besides him.

Rohia Monk Nicolae Steinhard,

Jurnalul fericirii(Cluj-Napoca, Romania:Dacia, 1991, 268)

After 1989, the Romanian Orthodox Church hierarchy cameunder fire for its long-standing collaboration with the communistauthorities and the dreaded political police, the Securitate. Callsfor condemning the recent past; banning communist officials andcollaborators from post-communist political life; and fully dis-closing thenames of those whoprovided thepolitical police withinformation on their neighbors, friends, and relatives impacted

655East European Politics and Societies, Vol. 19, No. 4, pages 655685. ISSN 0888-3254

2005 by the American Council of Learned Societies. All rights reserved.DOI: 10.1177/0888325404272454

* The authors would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ofCanada for providing generous support for this research. Dorin Dobrincu, Gabriel Catalan,andRodica andRa*zvan Zaharia helped us to identify material key for this article. All errors ofinterpretation are ours.


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Romanian politics in the early 1990s, but the transitional justiceprocess lost momentum and never reached the Central Europeanlevels. Indeed, Romania has lagged behind in terms of disclosingthe identity of political agents, adopting the legislative frame-

work granting citizens access to the files compiled by theSecuritate, and honestly reevaluating the communist regime andits human rights abuses. For example, the Czech Republic optedfor lustrating thousands of former communist officials, and Ger-many quickly offered citizens and researchers access to the Stasiarchive. In Romania, by contrast, a former collaborator ofCeaus,escu became the first post-communist President (IonIliescu ruled post-communist Romania for eleven of its first fif-teen years), and communist officials and political agents control

both politics and the economy. It was only in 1999 that the coun-try offered access to a limited number of Securitate files, theresult of the personal crusade of Christian Democrat senatorConstantinTicuDumitrescu, who faced public apathy toward thesubject and considerable opposition from the political class.

Like other Eastern European secret political police, the KGB-styled Securitate aimed to quash dissidence andopposition to theCommunist Party and its leaders and ensure the partys unchal-lengedmonopoly over all spheres of life. Accountableonly to thetop communist leadership, the political police used paidagentswith covered, uncovered, or partly covered identity

and an extensive network of part-time informers drawn frominside and outside party ranks. Estimates of the number of agentsand informers vary widely, ranging from as little as 400,000 toclose to 1 million in a total population of about 23 million. Theinformers represented the bulk of the Securitate personnel, witheach agent allegedly recruiting around 50 informers. The reasons

why citizens turned Securitate spies or victims were manifold.Informers could be blackmailed; animated by misled patrioticsentiment; or attracted by the financial compensations and theprivilege of passports, better jobs, or transfer from rural to urbanareas. Victims included pre-communist dignitaries and partyleaders, individuals critical of Communist Partypolicies andPres-ident Ceaus,escus megalomaniac projects, and unlucky fellows

who unsuccessfully tried to cross the border illegally to freedom.

656 The Devils Confessors


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Over the course of a life, a person couldchangehis relation to theSecuritate, being a torturer, then a tortured, then again a torturer,or even a victim and victimizer at the same time. Both spies andtheir victims had individual files, in which theSecuritate collectedinformation reports on them and from them.1

Dismantled after the December 1989 uprising, the Securitatewas reorganized shortly thereafter through an unpublished presi-dential decree as the Romanian Information Service (ServiciulRomn de Informat,ii or SRI, as the Romanians know it). Whileplaced under parliamentary supervision, during the past fifteen

years this service seemingly oversaw Parliament more than Par-liament oversaw it. Scores of press reports maintain that formerSecuritate members control key post-communist institutions,

becoming the countrys top entrepreneurs, politicians, judges,and ambassadors; and that old boys networks have master-minded the most scandalous financial schemes, in which thou-sands of ordinary citizens lost their life savings and the spiesacquired ownership of profitable state-owned enterprises and

vast stretches of land. From the beginning, the Service insistedthat it is a new security, intelligence agency with little connectionto the Securitate; completely different philosophy, policies, andaims; a firm commitment to accountability; and new, youngerpersonnel. Despite these claims, the Service consistently refusedto make public the internal workings of the communist political

police, the Securitate file archive, and the identity of its spies, achoice raising serious doubts about its credibility. Observersagree that since 1989 the Securitate archive has been modified,some say beyond recognition, by the destruction, addition, andalteration of documents.2

East European Politics and Societies 657

1. See Lavinia Stan, Access to Securitate Files: The Trials and Tribulations of a Romanian Law,East European Politics and Societies16:1(2002): 55-90; and Lavinia Stan, Moral CleansingRomanian Style,Problems of Post-Communism49 (July/August 2002): 52-62. The mostimportant English-language study on the Romanian communist political police remainsDennis Deletant,Ceausescu and the Securitate: Coercion and Dissent in Romania, 1965-1989(Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996).

2. See Kieran Williams andDennis Deletant,SecurityIntelligenceServices in New Democracies:

The Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (London: Palgrave, 2001); and Lavinia Stan,Spies, Files and Lies: Explaining the Failure of Access to Securitate Files,Communist andPost-Communist Studies37 (September 2004): 341-59.


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In Romania, the transitional justice process has revolvedaround gaining access to the Securitate archives, estimated tosome twenty-five linear kilometers of documents (less than asixth of the Stasi archive). According to the Law on file access no.187 of December 1999, the National Council for the Study ofSecuritate Archive is the governmental agency grantingRomanians access to their own files and investigating the pastinvolvement with the Securitate of public officials, electoral can-didates, bureaucrats and administrators, diplomats, religiousleaders, journalists, and university professors, among others. TheCouncil is led by a Parliament-appointed eleven-member Col-lege deciding whether an individual was an angel or a villainbased on information collected from the Securitate archive and

other archives, interviews with the individual, and additional rel-evant sources. Decisions are adopted with a simple majority ofpresent College members, if at least eight members attend themeeting, and can be contested in court within a month. Thenames of individuals found to have collaborated with the com-munist secretpolitical police arepublished inMonitorul Oficial.

Observers agree that the legislative framework for file access isdeficient. Rather than being selected from among independentcivil society representatives, College members were nominatedby political parties represented in the Senate from 1996 to 2000.The Council must determine past collaboration based on the

Securitate files, but because the archive is housed with the Infor-mation Service, the Council has no direct access to the shelves.Nobody knows how many files are extant, except for the Service,

which has been extremely reluctant to share information with thepublic, legislators, and the Council. Due to its virtual monopolyover the archive, the Service could destroy and alter the archiveas and when it pleases, protecting some public figures and dis-crediting others. Legally, the Service is not required to release allSecuritate files to the Council, but only those that are not endan-gering the national interest, which are to be selected jointly bythe Council and the Service. The Supreme Council for theDefense of the Country, on which the Service but not the Councilis represented, settles disputed cases. While the law compels theCouncil to answer petitions within a certain timeframe, it does



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not compel the Service to respond promptly and with dispatch tothe Councils requests for information.3

Among religious denominations, the most affected by transi-tional justice was the Romanian Orthodox Church. This is notsurprising, since the Church collaborated closely with the com-munist regime in exchange for having its assets protected fromnationalization and for being granted a privileged positionamong denominations in Romania. Four major themes illustratehow transitional justice affected the Orthodox Church. Theyinclude (1) Patriarch Teoctists undignified resignation in 1990and his controversial coming back at the helm of the Church, (2)allegations that Orthodox priests broke the secret of the confes-sional by reporting information to the Securitate, (3) reevaluating

the pros and cons of the Churchs collaboration with the commu-nist regime, and (4) the Churchs insistence that the names ofpolitical police agents and informers drawn from the Orthodoxclergy should be kept secret. We will now turn to each one ofthese themes, which illustrate the difficulties of separatingChurch and state during communist andpost-communist times.

Patriarch Teoctist: The unrepentant penitent?

Born in 1915, Teoctist Ara*pas,u became a monk in 1935 and thehead of the Orthodox Church in 1986, after the death of the

fourth Romanian Patriarch Iustin Moisescu. Teoctist attended theUniversity of Bucharests Faculty of Orthodox Theology from1940 to 1945, starting his university education when Romaniaplunged into fascist dictatorship and graduating after Soviettroops imposed a communist regime. By the time Teoctistbecame its head, the Orthodox Church was firmly under the con-trol of the communist state, which appointed its leaders and dras-tically reduced its input in politics, education, and social work.Both coercion (in the form of imprisonment of clergy with anti-communist views and the close monitoring of all priests and


3. See Stan, Spies, Files and Lies; Gabriel Andreescu, Legea 187/1999 s,i primul an de

activitate a CNSAS,Drepturile Omului20 (2001): 37-53; and Mircea Sta*nescu, Le ConseilNational pour LEtude des Archives de la Securitate et le Probleme de la Gestion delHeritage Communiste,Asymetria, 10 April 2002.


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church leaders) and the granting of privileges (including GreekCatholic property transfer) were used to win the OrthodoxChurchs submission. Teoctist became Patriarch not so much dueto extraordinary intellectual and spiritual accomplishments butrather due to the support of the third Patriarch Iustinian Marina,

who nominated him as Metropolitan of Moldova, the secondmost important position in the Romanian Orthodox Church,

whose occupant traditionally becomes the Patriarch. Teoctistspropensity for compromise and obedience ensured that the com-munist authorities approved of his nomination.

Both before and after 1986, Teoctist was viewed as a supporterof Ceaus,escus policies of general suppression of religiousdenominations, church demolition, and the defrocking of priests

who dared to stand up to the communist dictator. Though heoccupied the Patriarchal seat only for the last three years of com-munist rule, Teoctist found it difficult to defend his Churchagainst the all-powerful state. The written record of his commu-nist-era public interventions included countless congratulatoryand adulatory telegrams and speeches praising Ceaus,escu butmaking no mention of the regimes suppression of religious life.

Without protest, Teoctist allowed scores of churches recognizedas historical monuments to be demolished or moved to less con-spicuous locations. Some twenty-two churches in Bucharestalone were knocked down before 1987, when the communist

regime gave in to Western pressure and started to move churchesbehind high-rising apartment blocks. Western democracies inter-preted the Patriarchs lack of an official reaction to church demo-lition as a sure sign of collaboration with the communists.

Not even after the anti-Ceaus,escu revolt started in the westerntown of Timis,oara, Banat region, did Teoctist show resolve toanticipate the public mood and criticize the dictator. On 19December 1989, three days after the massacre in front of theTimis,oara Orthodox cathedral, Teoctist sent a telegram toCeaus,escu, marking the end of the National Church Assemblyannual meeting and congratulating the dictator for his predict-able reelection as Communist Party leader at the fourteenth partycongress held a month earlier. Immersed in the adulatory lingo ofthe time, the telegram claimed that Romanians were living in a



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Golden Age, properly and rightly bearing the name of[Ceaus,escu], praised for his brilliant activity, wise guidance,and daring thinking.4After Ceaus,escus overthrow, the publicoutcry following the telegrams disclosure was considerable,placing the Orthodox Church in the difficult position of an insti-tution siding with the oppressive tyrant against the revolting peo-ple. TheRomnia Libera daily described the telegram as nothingshort of irresponsible and spoke of the great disgrace that hasfallen upon the Orthodox Church, tarnishing its traditions andmartyrdom.5 For the intellectuals, the telegram proved onceagain the Churchs unconditional submission to communistauthorities and abandonment of Christian morality and showedthe insincerity of Teoctists and the Synods commitment to the

December revolution. In the first hours of the uprising, Teoctistcalled on Romanians to support the National Salvation Front, arevolutionary formation with deep roots in the second-echeloncommunist nomenklatura. Later, Teoctist denounced Ceaus,escuas a Herod of our times, while the Synod came out in favor ofthe Front.6

Facing reprobation from all corners, Patriarch Teoctistresigned for what he diplomatically called reasons of health andage during the Holy Synod extraordinary session of 18 January1990. At the end of the meeting, Teoctist asked God and believersfor forgiveness for lying under duress and for failing to oppose

the dictatorship.7

Accepting the resignation, the Synod appointedan interim committee to lead the Orthodox Church until the elec-tion of a successor. Reporting the news,Le Mondetalked about acrisis in the Romanian Orthodox Church and suggested that

Archimandrite Bartolomeu Anania had the best chances ofbecoming the next Patriarch, though Anania was not the Metro-


4. See Dan Ionescu, Crisis in the Romanian Orthodox Church,Report on Eastern Europe, 9March 1990, 48-51.

5. Romania Libera,31 December 1989.6. In 1998, Corneanu said he insisted that Teoctist address the Romanians in the first hours of

the December 1989 revolution, on grounds that an era when people were alone ended, theChurch which was supposed to bring people together failed to do so. Though we couldcome up with examples to demonstrate the positive role of the Church during communist

times, at the time we failed to help the people. See22, 3-9 March 1998; andAdevarul, 25December 1989.

7. Radio Romnia Actualita*t,i, 4 January 1990.


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politan of Moldova at the time. In reply, Anania declared that hedid not seek the position, while Sibiu Faculty of Orthodox Theol-ogy church law professor Ioan Floca rejected suspicions of apower vacuum as unfounded and appealed for the mainte-nance and consolidation of the unity of the Romanian OrthodoxChurch.8 Teoctists resignation opened a vivid debate onaccepted norms of patriarchal vacancy and succession. Accord-ing to Orthodox canon law, a person cannot resign as Patriarchunless physically or mentally incapacitated; otherwise succes-sion is settled after the incumbents death. Some RomanianOrthodox theologians believed that Teoctists unprecedentedresignation could set an undesirable precedent by opening the

way for the removal of other Holy Synod members and allowing

public pressure to sideline hierarchs for reasons more politicalthan spiritual.

Teoctists repenting mood did not last, and practical consider-ations related to canon law prevailed over the need to deal withthe painful communist past with sincerity and compassion.Reclaiming the patriarchal seat barely three months after his res-ignation, Teoctist suggested that he had no choice in sending theadulatory telegram, which the Securitate agents overseeing reli-gious affairs in communist Romania had automatically filed as

was customary at the time. Dismissing the telegram as a party-imposed ritual unreflective of his or the Orthodox Churchs

position vis--vis Ceaus,escu and his policies, Teoctist insisted onthe pressures to which the communist authorities exposed himand claimed that he was a prisoner of his patriarchal residenceduring his first three years in office. The information was contra-dicted by earlier statements in which the Patriarch described his1988 trip to Rome where he secretly met Pope John Paul II, andadmitted that he was allowed to travel, though restricted in hismoves and under constant Securitate surveillance. The completesecrecy surrounding the brief meeting with the Pope sparedTeoctist of the wrath of communist authorities and politicalpolice.9


8. Reported in Ionescu, Crisis, 50.9. Agerpress, 30 December 1989.


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The halfhearted apology Teoctist delivered in late 1989 wasconsidered sufficient to heal the old wounds and restore publicconfidence in the Orthodox Church. As such, Teoctist and Synodmembers made no further mention of their collaboration withcommunist authorities until early 2000, when in a BBC interviewTeoctist asked for forgiveness for concessions the Church madeduring the communist rule to survive and expressed his regretsthat believers suffered because he lacked the courage to defendthe Church. The timing of the declaration, the first in whichTeoctist spoke on communist-era church demolitions, coincided

with calls for opening the Securitate files of Orthodox Churchleaders. Rather than taking the opportunity to elaborate on theissue and present the reasons for collaboration, Teoctist adopted

a one-step-forward-two-steps-back strategy and tried to recasthimself and the Orthodox Church as the main anti-communistopposition in the country. He declared that in 1987 he adamantlyopposed the proposal of communist dignitary Ion Dinca*, whosought to move the patriarchal see from downtown Bucharest toa remote location unbefitting for a Patriarchs Church.Many won-dered, however, why he did not seek Western help and why hekept silent on the regimes intentions on grounds that disclosurewould have affected the faithful in unspecified but presumablynegative ways. In the same interview, Teoctist reiterated that thecommunist Department of Religious Affairs, not him, had filed

the ill-fated December 1989 telegram, written and sent in an actof routine bearing no relationship to the Timis,oara massacre.The interview was received with skepticism in Romania.10

In 2001, Ziarul de Ias,ireported that local historian DorinDobrincu, while working in the Romanian Information Servicearchive, discovered a Securitate document portraying Teoctist asan Iron Guard member and a participant in the January 1941 fas-cist rebellion, which resulted in thedeath of 416 people, of which120 were Jewish. The rebellion was a failed coup detat launchedafter Romanian leader Marshal Ion Antonescu ended an alliance

with the Guard started in September 1940 at a time of deep politi-


10. BBC Romanian Service, 15 February 2000.


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cal crisis. Because the Orthodox clergy supported the rebellion,Antonescu adopted Decree-Law 314 of 15 February 1941 ban-ning priests from politics. At a December 1941 meeting of theCouncil of Ministers, Antonescu was told that 422 priests hadbeen sent before military tribunals for their part in the rebellion.The communist regime forced many Guard members to collabo-rate under threat of disclosing their past fascist sympathies. Thedocument,which the Securitate agentsdrafted basedon informa-tion supplied by unnamed informers, suggested that the twenty-six-year-old Teoctist ransacked a Bucharest synagogue, together

with other priests and guard members. It read that Teoctist wasonce an active legionary, participant in the rebellion and thedevastation of the synagogue on the Antim street in Bucharest,

and was close to and a great influence on the Patriarch [IustinianMarina], who supports Ara*pas,us nomination as the next Metro-politan of Moldova.

11

Teoctist remained silent on this damning public revelation,and the Patriarchate spokesman dismissed the document aspure fabrication, but the public scandal couldnotbe averted. Inthe following days, theZiarul de Ias,ireport was supported byother independent sources. The Bucharest-basedEvenimentulZileidaily confirmed Teoctists involvement in the Iron Guardand claimed that it had been known within Orthodox circles forsome time before reaching the public. High school history

teacher Gabriel Catalan reported that in fondD, file 7755, volume3, page 239 of the Securitate archive he found Note no. 131 of 4October 1949 linking Teoctist to the Iron Guard and the syna-gogue destruction. Catalan also ventured to say that the notessource appeared to be the then Metropolitan of TransylvaniaNicolae Ba*lan. Historian Cristian Troncota*, who had access to thePatriarchs Securitate file, confirmed Teoctists adherence to theGuard but not his participation in the synagogue destruction.Troncota*described the file as impressive, containing eight thick

volumes, and revealed that Teoctist was followed until he


11.Ziarul de Ias,i, 13 January 2001. The document incriminating Teoctist, dated 30 January1950, was found in the SRI archive, fond D, file 909, page 510.


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became the Patriarch. Some Bishops reported on him, and manySynod members opposed him.12

Asked to comment on the Patriarchs tainted past, maverickpoet and anti-communist dissident Mircea Dinescu said that[Teoctist] could have no career if Securitate had nothing onhim.13 The implication was that Teoctists reluctance todenounce communist abuses stemmed from his fear of beingpublicly unmasked as a fascist collaborator, a revelation that

would have destroyed his reputation with the Romanians, West-ern governments, and sister churches.Evenimentul Zileijournal-ist Cornel Nistorescu urged the Council for the Study of Securitate

Archives to examine Teoctists file and the Patriarch to confessand ask for forgiveness for his fascist past. Nistorescu dismissed

suggestions that the confession would make the Churchunpopu-lar with the Romanians. In his words, For a long time the Roma-nian Orthodox Church assumed no responsibility for [its actionsduring] the communist period. When Patriarch Teoctist asked tobe forgiven for lacking the courage to raise against church demo-lition no tragedy ensued and the Romanians trust in the Churchdid not diminish.

14The scandal escalated when the Council fired

investigator Catalan, who publicly declared that before workingfor the Council he was a doctoral candidate, and in that capacityhe found archival evidence that Teoctist belonged to the IronGuard, collaborated with the Securitate, and was a homosexual.15

President Iliescu disapproved of the ungrounded and inde-cent attack against the Patriarch, declaring that the Council wasset up for studying the communist past, not for its employees tocarry out personal vendettas against public figures, and that thecompilation of black lists, the unauthorized and partial use ofinformation increase the confusion and suspicion of the Roma-nian society, discrediting traditional institutions like Church andarmy.16 It is unclearwhich black lists Iliescu was referring to.


12.Evenimentul Zilei, 19 January 2001.13. Ibid., 15 January 2001.

14. Ibid., 19 January 2001.15.Ziarul de Ias,i, 23 March 2001.16.Evenimentul Zilei, 24 March 2001.


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On 23 March 2001, the Information Service announced that byanalyzing Teoctists Securitate file no. 62046 it concluded that theSecuritate pursued the Patriarch, who was its victim, not itsinformer. The next day, the Council for the Study of Securitate

Archives, the only Romanian institution entitled to distinguish vil-lains from angels, asked the Service for the release of Teoctistsfile in order to give its own verdict on the case. When it becameevident that Council president Gheorghe Onis,oru seemedinclined to exonerate the Patriarch, the opposition DemocratParty criticized him for rushing to clear Teoctist of collaborationcharges before studying the file and despite the fact that immedi-ately after the revolution rumors had it that Teoctist was aSecuritate agent. For the Democrats, the rumors seemed a clear

proof that the Council was unable to find the incriminating evi-dence, whose existence they did not question.17 The case speaksfor the tremendous difficulties facing transitional justice in Roma-nia. It is unlikely that Teoctist was a Securitate informer con-sciously and zealously providingdamning information on others.The Patriarch seems to be guilty forwhat he did not do more thanfor what he did do, a guilt not necessarily reflected in theSecuritate archival documents.

Securitates confessors:Between sacrament and sacrilege

Patriarch Teoctist was not the only contested Orthodox leader.Since the collapse of the communist regime and the opening ofpreviously inaccessible archives, compelling evidence hasmounted to support the thesis that Orthodoxclergy and hierarchsactively collaborated with the Securitate. Much public debate hassurrounded revelations that some Orthodox priests broke thesecret of the confessional by reporting information obtained that

way to the communist political police. In its characteristic style,the Orthodox Church leadership dismissed such reports as com-pletely unfounded, but this attitude only fueled public mistrust,

with scores of journalists, intellectuals, politicians, historians, and


17.Ziarul de Ias,i, 28 March 2001.


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theologians joining the debate and analyzing the political andtheological consequences of such spiritual trespassing.

Orthodoxy harshly condemns breaking the secret of the con-fessional. Together with the Roman Catholic Church, the Ortho-dox Church recognizes confession as one of the sacraments, themeans of communicating divine grace. Sacraments occupy cen-ter stage in the doctrine of salvation, which itself is key to Chris-tian theology. According to Dumitru Sta*niloae, Romanias preem-inent Orthodox theologian, The person confessing knows thatthe priest will not divulge the secret and trusts the priestbecause he feels that the priest is responsible for his salvationbefore Christ, listens in the name of Christ with a strength whichcomes from Christ.18 Patriarchy spokesperson Vicent,iu

Ploies,teanu further explained the sacrament of confession as asecret between the confessor and the penitent that needs to bestrictly guarded. If by mistake or carelessness we divulge a word,

we automatically are defrocked before Christ, not before men.19

Trust and secrecy go hand in hand for the confession to be com-plete and for the priest to act as an effective link between believ-ers and God. The Orthodox canon law confirms the confessorsobligation to keep the secret. Canon 28 of Nicephorus of Con-stantinople reads that a Father Confessor must forbid divinecommunion to those confessing secret sins to him, while lettingthem enter the church; he must not reveal their sins, but advise

them gently to remain repentant and keep praying; and he mustadjust theamercements tobefit eachoneof themaccording tohisbest judgment.20

The news of a possible leak of information obtained duringconfession broke in mid-1998 and provoked a public uproar to

which all mass media outlets contributed substantially, despitethe fact that no hard evidence was produced to prove the infor-mation leak. Christian Democrat and Greek Catholic SenatorIoan Moisin voiced the indignation of many ordinary Romanians

when he demanded to know in whose service were the [Ortho-


18. Dumitru Sta*niloae, Teologia dogmatica ortodoxa,vol. 3 (Bucharest, Romania: Editura

Institutului Biblic s,i de Misiune al Bisericii Ortodoxe Romne, 1997).19.Cotidianul, 11 July 2001.20. Ioan N. Floca,Canoanele Bisericii Ortodoxe(Sibiu, Romania: Polsib, 1992), 458-59.


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dox] priests who told Securitate what they heard at confession,Christs or the Securitates? The Patriarch and the Bishops shouldtell us what punishment the church law prescribes for breakingthe secret of the confessional, and whether the punishment wasenforced! At the same time, Ziarul de Ias,inoted, It is wellknown that many priests were Securitate informers, offeringinformation to which repression organs normally had no access.Through confession, priests found almost everything about thepersonal life of the faithful.21 Ticu Dumitrescu also revealed thathe found out from his Securitate file that two different priestsinformed on his father.22

While the ties with the Securitate of Orthodox clergy remainshrouded in secrecy, we can distinguish four groups. The first

two include priests who did not break the secret of the confes-sional. There were priests who avoided collaboration by refusingto take a stand against the regime. Some observers argue thatmost priests belonged to this category, but others say that such apolitically neutral position was untenable. Bishop of Alba Iulia

Andrei Andreicut, belongs to this category. In S-aurisipit fa*ca*toriide basmehe recounted his life based on his Securitate file.

23The

volume includes copies of twenty-five memos filed by agentsand reports signed by informers obtained from the Council forthe Study of Securitate Archives. Pupils attending his catechismclasses, occasional acquaintances, fellow priests, and theology

professors were among the spies. Andreicut, became a Securitatetarget when he abandoned a career as an engineer to pursuetheological studies. A note in his file explained that he continued,even after being warned, his intense religious activity meant tocounteract the official atheistic education. He is a good Roma-nian, a true patriot, but dislikes the communist or socialist systemand is determined to free the people from our socialist ideology,even with the price of self-sacrifice.24 Not an active dissident,

Andreicut, was pursued for his religious commitment and friend-


21.Monitorul, 29 July 1998.22.Ziarul de Ias,i, 7 July 2001.

23. Andrei Andreicut,,S-au risipit fa*

ca*

torii de basme. Amintiri care dor(Alba Iulia, Romania:Editura Rentregirii, 2001).24. Andreicut,,S-au risipit fa*ca*torii, 69.


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ship with individuals critical of communism. He applied fourtimes before the Securitate and the State Department of Religious

Affairs allowed him to enter the doctoral program, his nomina-tion to become a missionary priest stationedabroadwas rejected,and his transfer to Cluj city was blocked. Devices planted in hishome allowed a Securitate agent nicknamed Nicu to listen to allof Andreicut,s conversations, and even his confession.

Second, a numberof priests openly resisted the regime. Ortho-dox leaders insist that thousands of priests were imprisoned inthe 1950s, but the number of clergy dissidents dwindled to ahandful by the 1980s. A well-known dissenter was FatherGheorghe Calciu Dumitreasa, whoseS,apte cuvinte pentru tineri,delivered at the Bucharest seminary, broadcast by Radio Free

Europe, and circulated in samizdat form, described atheism as aphilosophy of despair.25 In retaliation, the Securitate imprisonedCalciu in 1979, and the Synod defrocked him, apparently accord-ing to the Apostolic Canon 84, which reads that whosoever shallinsult the king, or a ruler, contrary to what is right, let him sufferpunishment. If he be a clergyman, let him be deposed; if a lay-man, excommunicated.

26Two entries from Andreicut,s

Securitate file speak of Calcius beliefs andprisonconditions. TheSecuritate reported that on 24 December 1980 teacher TudorPetre told Andreicut, that Calciu pitied the people destroyingchurches to build taverns. He referred to the Enei church [in

downtown Bucharest], replaced by a restaurant. [Petre] urged[Andreicut,] to become a good servant of the Church, saying thatmany clergy were immoral, even those teaching in the theologydepartments, and that the situation is hard to remedy because thecurrent [communist] regime encourages future priests to beimmoral so that the Church is destroyed from inside out.27 Later,retired priest Aurel Olteanu told Andreicut, that he knew fromCalcius wife that Calcius food ration was reduced because theregime wanted him dead. He was told that if in need of morefood he should work for it. [Calciu] refused for fear ofbeing killed


25. The sermons were published in 1979 in Munich by Ion Dumitru Verlag.

26. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds.,Seven Ecumenical Councils(Peabody, Massachusetts:Hendrickson, 1994), 599.27. Andreicut,,S-au risipit fa*ca*torii, 66-67.


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under the false charge of trying to escape. This happened to pro-fessor Liviu Munteanu . . . imprisoned in Aiud, a chain smoker.

When taken out for a walk he leaned to picked up a cigarette buttand was shot, allegedly because he tried to flee.28At the insis-tence of Western governments, Calciu was allowed to emigrate.

After 1989, the Synod reinstated him.More recently, the press reported the case of Father Stelica*

Popovici, who supported the anti-communist resistance move-ment in the Constant,a county and spent thirteen years in the

worst communist prisons after refusing to break the secret of theconfessional. Father Alecsandru Capota*, a political prisoner from1958 to 1962, provided another example of moral rectitude thatneeds to be commended. Recounting his painful memories from

communist prisons, Capota*revealed that in jail [the authorities]promised to set me free in exchange for information on the Bish-opric. When I asked why they did not ask their informers insidethe Bishopric for such information, they said that they wantedinformation on the informers.

29Without divulging names,

Andreicut,s testimony revealed that the State Department of Reli-gious Affairs was closely cooperating with the Securitate to elicitinformation reports from members of the Alba Iulia Bishopric.

The next two categories included priests who acted at thecommand of the Securitate and denounced parishioners, priests,and prelates. Both groups include informers, but some collabo-

rated, did not recant, and considered that they had nothing to beashamed for, although they made every effort to hide their pastcollaboration, while others bravely confessed and asked for for-giveness. Metropolitan of Banat Nicolae Corneanu and priestEugen Jurca belong to this latter group. A bishop since 1961,Corneanu made compromises with the communist government,but in a 1997 interview he candidly admitted to defrocking fivedissident priests in 1981 under pressure from the Securitate. Oneof the five priests was Calciu Dumitreasa. After 1989, the Churchrescinded all politically inspired punishments. In a festiveroundtable organized in late 1998, the Bucharest-based Group of


28. Ibid., 67-68.29.Monitorul, 29 July 1998.


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Social Dialogue (which includes respected Romanian intellectu-als) praised Corneanu for being one of the few OrthodoxChurch leaders who managed with the word, deed and publicpresence to show us how the Church must be present in societyin order to bring us together. Corneanu modestly insisted thatbesides small things, I made only concessions, and said that hisneed to publicly reveal his collaboration stemmed from a feelingof culpability and the urge to recover the past.30

In a March 2001 open letter to Orthodox leaders and the civilsociety, Jurca confessed he had been a Securitate collaborator forten years, and in 1980 signed a pledge to spy out of fear, coward-ice, ignorance, and despair. After the collapse of the communistregime, Jurca stopped meeting his Securitate liaison officer, and

in 1993 he had to turn down a call from the officer asking him toprovide information on old religion books brought into thecoun-try. In his public confession, Jurca urged the Orthodox hierarchsand clergy not to give in to intimidation and blackmail over theirpersonal sins and declared that Romanians needed to find outthe truth such that the youth avoid the shadows of the past andthe horrors we once lived. Real national reconciliation is impossi-ble without cleansing us of the moral ambiguity we live in. Thetruth must be known, however painful and shameful. Civil soci-ety representatives praised Jurcas confession as an important actof conscience and an opportunity for Romanians with similar

experiences to reflect on the issue and urged informer priests toconfess their sins and set an example of morality for the entiresociety. Jurca was the first priest to confess publicly, after thepress published excerpts from Teoctists Securitate file.31

Lack of reliable data on the number and socioeconomic back-ground of Securitate agents and informers does not allow us toestimate the percentage of informer priests. Press reports suggestthat a high percentage of Orthodox priests collaborated in oneform or another, charges the Orthodox Church vehementlydenies. Following Father Capota*, only one or two priests in theeastern county of Galat,i refused to collaborate. In his words,


30.22, 3-9 March 1998.31.Evenimentul Zilei, 24 and 26 March 2001.


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allegedly became the head of an extremist party and a wealthycapitalist. Based on written [collaboration] pledges, almost allOrthodox clergy became informers, Vasilievici declared,recruited for their nationalist sentiment. Vasilievici estimatedthat informers accounted for 80 to 90 percent of the Orthodoxclergy, and added that this information network [of priests] wasgradually educated in a nationalist, chauvinist and xenophobicspirit. Church leaders were supervised by the intelligence andcounter-intelligence departments, were subjected to complextraining programs, and sent abroad to serve their socialist countryby collecting information, participating in nationalist-communistpropaganda activities, disinformation campaigns, providing falseinformation to emigration leaders, infiltrating the Radio Free

Europe radio station, and mending the broken image of Romaniaand its communist leadership.34

The article is important for detailing the relationship betweenthe Securitate officers and informers, the criteria for maintaininga good profile with the police, the methods the Securitate used to

verify the reliability of its informer network, and the steps of therecruitment process. By doing so, the article presents a rareglimpse into the inner workings of the secret organization thatkept Romanians in check and under the thumbof the CommunistParty for forty-five years. Vasilievici revealed that the commu-nist-era Department of Religious Affairs was the Securitates

KGB-styled annex. Whoever says that he was sent as a priest to aWestern parish without collaborating with the Securitate lies withunchristian nonchalance. Doctors, professors, engineers, jour-nalists, and priests were allowed to travel abroad as part of thehighly secretAtlas program.According to theSecuritate officer,

All of them wrote reports after their return, and all were subject todraconian verifications with respect to their political beliefs, futureintentions and loyalty to the communist regime. Their phone callswere monitored, their mail intercepted, their every move followed,and their homes and workplaces bugged. There was a general and aspecialized training; this way individuals indoctrinated by commu-nism, nationalism and chauvinism were formed during an era when

reason slept. The origin of the current paranoid and outdated nation-


34. Ibid., 14 June 1999.


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alism lies in the Securitate reeducation and training programs. Thisalso explains the excessive nationalism of the clergy, who ceased to

think critically and search for rational arguments, adopting insteadpara-logical thinking patterns praising Marx and Ceausescu, a self-imposed schizophrenia. This training resulted in the [Orthodoxclergys] intolerance toward other religious denominations and theGreek Catholic Church.

Vasilievici further explained that after contact was establishedand collaboration was agreed upon, the Securitate compiled twofiles for each priest. While both files had the same number, thefirst referred strictly to the informer, while the second containedreports on other individuals the priest filed. Securitate agents met

with the clergy at least monthly to gauge popular mood.35

During the past fifteen years, a number of Orthodox leadersand priests have become embarrassed by press revelationsregarding their tainted past. Despite civil society claims that col-laboration was the rule inside the Church, revelations have gen-erally dealt with isolated individual cases and did not paint theOrthodox Church as a corrupt organization where the majority ofpriests partook in spying activities. While important, Vasilievicisestimate claiming that close to four in five priests had collabo-rated remains unsubstantiated and vague with respect to con-crete names, places, dates and actions. It is likely that the past ofmore and more clergy members will come under careful publicscrutiny as a larger part of the Securitate archive is transferredfrom the Information Service to the Council for the Study ofSecuritate Archives, a process scheduled to start in the nearfuture. As such, we can expect many clergy to come forward andconfess and probably even many more to dismiss the gravity oftheir actions and defend their past activities.

Communist servant or shrewd negotiator?

The Romanian Orthodox Churchs multifaceted collaborationwith the communist authorities is well documented.36 TheChurch


35. Ibid.

36. Among recent contributions, see Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, The Romanian Ortho-dox Church and Post-Communist Democratization, Europe-Asia Studies52 (December2000): 1467-88; and Olivier Gillet, Religion et nationalisme. LIdeologie de lEglise


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flattered Ceaus,escu and glorified him as a secular god, demi-god, and savior; contributed to the manipulation of religioussymbols; tacitly agreed to a church demolition policy sacrificingits interests to the whim of the communist leaders; served as thecommunists trusted instrument to destroy the Greek CatholicChurch; and quashed anti-communist sentiment and dissidenceamong its clergy. After 1989, hierarchs insisted that these actionsaimed to guarantee the survival of the Church. No sacrifice wastoo big and no price was too high for the Orthodox Church toavoid obliteration at the hands of the atheistic political regime.Critics maintained that as Gods institution on earth, the Churchhad the strength to exit unblemished even the most dire circum-stances and that no mundane individual or institution could undo

the work of God and destroy his Church. While defendersclaimed that the strength the Romanian Orthodox Church hadrelative to other Churches in the communist block proved themright, critics argued that the example of the Russian OrthodoxChurch demonstrated that even when the communist authoritiesbanned the Church, confiscated its property, and harassed itsclergy and followers, the Church could survive clandestinely.

Various authors brought forth evidence for the contribution ofthe Orthodox Church to Nicolae Ceaus,escus personality cult.

Analyst Dan Ionescu revealed that one of the oldest RomanianOrthodox publication, theTelegraful Romn,published in the

Transylvanian city of Sibiu, enthusiastically quoted a Frenchbiographer of Ceaus,escu, who had compared him to Mosesleading his flock toward the promised land of welfare and inde-pendence.37 Every year, prelates praised the communist leader,party, and regime for their commitment to defend human rightsand build a multilaterally developed Romania. However, assoon as it became clear that Ceaus,escu would not return to thecountrys helm after his overthrow, Orthodox leaders changedsides, blessed the anti-communist revolution, and turned againsttheir communist allies. In their January 1990 declaration Ora


Orthodoxe Roumaine sous le regime communiste(Bruxelles: Editions de lUniversite deBruxelles, 1997).37. Ionescu, Crisis, 49.


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adeva*rului (The Hour of Truth), Synod members admitted theirguilt and compromises with the communist regime, as a tributefor the Churchs vital interests, andapologized for those whodidnot always have the courage of the martyrs.38 Unfortunately, thebelated condemnationof Ceaus,escuand his antireligiouspoliciesfrom the pulpit did not quell public opposition to the OrthodoxChurch. Its leaders controversial past has remained a stumblingblock for the Church and the subject of periodic campaignsaimed to discredit it. At issue were its unconditional submissionto the communist rulers and ties to the Securitate.

Opposition to Orthodox leaders first came from within theChurch.The most notable initiative took place on 9 January 1990,

when Anania, Andreicut,, and Sta*niloae set up a seven-member

Group for Reflection on Church Renewal to regenerate theChurch by replacing tainted leaders. The group targeted the HolySynod, the collective Orthodox Church leadership, which at thetime included contested hierarchs like Patriarch Teoctist, Metro-politan of Transylvania Antonie Pla*ma*deala*, and Metropolitan ofOltenia Nestor Vornicescu. When asked to resign and make wayfor younger, reform-minded leaders, Synod members turneddown the proposal, though public confidence in the Churchstood at an all-time low. A week later, the Patriarchatedenounced the insulting campaign directed against the Church,reminiscent of the Stalinist drive of the first years of communist

rule in Romania. After this setback, the group never again chal-lenged the leadership, and ultimately lost importance. Its failureto attract support from the clergy and theology students followedthe death of its most prominent member, Sta*niloae. The groupssmall successes contributed to its very demise, since every timetheOrthodox hierarchy co-opted a groupmember, thegroup lostanother voice, gradually turning into a defender of the statusquo. Anania became Archbishop of Cluj and, with Metropolitan

Antonie Pla*ma*deala**s deteriorating health, the de facto, if not dejure, Orthodox leader of Transylvania. Ironically, he remains oneof the most conservative Romanian Orthodox leaders. Youngtheologian Daniel Ciobotea was appointed Metropolitan of


38. Rompres, 12 January 1990.


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Moldova, occupying the second most important position in theChurch hierarchy, which had remained vacant after Teoctists1986 nomination as Patriarch. Andreicut, replaced the controver-sial Emilian Birdas as Bishop of Alba Iulia, and TheodorBaconsky wasRomanias Ambassador to theVatican from 1997 to2001.39

Representatives of minority churches also mounted criticism.On 29 September 1997, Christian Democrat and Greek Catholicsenator Ioan Moisin attacked the Orthodox Church. Citing pre-1989 newspaper reports and books, Moisin denounced theChurch for collaborating with the communists and interfering

with the democratization process, argued that the Church can-not solve its crisis without telling the truth, and named senior

clerics who allegedly abetted communists.They included the lateMetropolitan of Transylvania Nicolae Ba*lan, Bishops Vasile Leu,Roman and Antonie, priest Dumitru Cumpa*nas,u, and PatriarchIustin. Before Soviet troops even reached [the Metropolitan seeof] Sibiu, Moisin said, Ba*lan sent a telegram to Metropolitan ofLeningrad Alexy praising the freedom brought by the Soviet

Army and blaming Romanias political mistake of fightingagainst the Soviets on the weakening of the Romanian peo-ple . . . and the existence of [the Greek Catholic] Church in com-munion with the Papal Church in Rome. During the Bucharestcongress of religious denominationsheld on 16-17 October 1945,

Ba*lan publicly thanked the Soviet Union.

40

In 1993, Roman Cath-olic Bishop Ioan Ploscaru identified Leu as the inmate denounc-ing Roman Catholic prisoners to the communist guards. Eachtime a Roman Catholic priest prayed, Leu alerted the guards witha big sign of the cross.41 Moisin further revealed that Cumpa*nas,u

was a communist official and a Securitate agent, Roman andAntonie denounced Calciu Dumitreasa to state and party organs,Moisescu reached the lowest possible levels of cowardice,


39. Apparently, close to a hundred priests from the Alba Iulia diocese asked for Birdass resig-nation, in response to his collaboration with local communist authorities. The Synodaccepted the resignation at its 18 January 1990 extraordinary meeting but announced it tothe press a week later. For more details on the removal, see Andreicut,, S-aurisipit fa*ca*torii,

especially last chapters.40. Moisin quoted Ba*lans statements from the multiauthored volumeBiserica Romna*Unita*(Madrid, Spain: n.p., 1952), 278-79.

41. Ioan Ploscaru,Lant,uri s,i teroare(Bucharest, Romania: Signata, 1993), 420-22.


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while Pla*ma*deala*did the work of the Department of ReligiousAffairs.42

In his statement before the Senate, Moisin cited Sibiu Facultyof Orthodox Theology professorNicolae Dura, whoboldly wrotethat some church leaders appointed during the Ceaus,escu era(1965-1989) pledged allegiance first to the Secu monastery (readthe Securitate and the Department of Religious Affairs), and thento the Holy Altar. Those appointed after 1989 got their education[abroad] with support from the Secu monastery and laterbecame leaders with the help of their National Salvation Frontprotectors.43 Elsewhere, Dura spoke of the communist-eraOrthodox theology students as Securitate creatures and com-munist tools of collaboration, an assessment Moisin confirmed

with a 1978 letter to Radio Free Europe in which Bucharest Semi-nary students condemned the jail-like atmosphere, the beatings,and the informer networks controlling their institution.

44After

accusing Patriarch Teoctist of assisting the communists in forcingGreek Catholic priests to convert to Orthodoxy and for opposingCeaus,escus church destruction, the senator asked for theSecuritate files ofOrthodox leaders to beopened to the public.

Along the same lines, in 2001 journalist Cornel Nistorescuwrote that not us, the believers, turned God into a CommunistParty member or wrote in 1952 Patriarch Iustinians speech[praising communist leader] Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and in

1948 an Ode to Stalin the Great in Telegraful romn. . . . In March1989, the Synod, not the believers, sent Ceaus,escu a telegrampledging our full support for your ongoing activity as a great andbrilliant heroof peace, a fighter of internationaldtente, disarma-ment, understanding and peaceful cooperation betweennations.45 The Orthodox Churchs ties with the Securitatebecame the subject of another article written by analyst N. C.Munteanu, a former Radio Free Europe correspondent. Trying to


42. Moisin quoted Radu Ciuceanu,Intrarea n tunel(Bucharest, Romania: Meridiane, 1991),319; and Sergiu Grossu,Calvarul Romniei cres,tine(Deva, Romania: Convorbiri Literare,1992), 262-63.

43. Nicolae Dura, Pe cnd canonizarea clericilor s,i mirenilor martirizat,i n temnit,elecomuniste?Dreptatea, 8-16 December 1993.

44. Nicolae Dura, Inva*t,a*mntul teologic universitar ortodox din Romnia de asta*zi,Dreptatea, 15-22 December 1993.

45.Evenimentul Zilei, 2 July 2001.


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provide a balanced view on the subject, Munteanu claimed thatuntil 1951 laypeople, not clergy, filed most reports, and onlyafterwards the Securitate proceeded to compile files on theclergy. Of 400,000 files on individuals hostile to the communistregime but not incarcerated, 130,000 regarded clergy of variousdenominations. Communist authorities arrested around fourthousand priests, half of whom were Orthodox. FollowingMunteanu,

When repression failed, [communists] obliged Church leaders to par-ticipate in quasi-political activitiespeace marches, the NationalAssemblyto compromise them in the eyes of the faithful. TheChurch hierarchy had to give Caesar what was Caesars. Some gavemore and, with their consciousness, their soul. . . . The Church lead-

ers collaboration with theSecuritate remains anopen wound, thoughthe proof is thin and there are debatable testimonies of police agents,who avoid specifying names, dates and places. . . . Periodic interest inthe [issue] stems from the fears, distrust and suspicions poisoning ourexistence. Unfortunately, Orthodox leaders consider it part of a cam-paign to discredit the Church. This is a regrettable exaggeration. TheChurch is not reducible to its leaders or to those who signed the pactwith the devil. Refusal to clarify the situation can only fuel suspicion.

For the writer, the Securitate was far more blamable than thepriests. The Secu monastery gathered the servants of evil,

who forgave nothing and left nothing and nobody untainted.Munteanu lamented the authorities determination to keep thismonastery closed with seven locks, and concluded that thetruth, however painful, must come to light because . . . the moralresurrection of the Romanians involves the Church, too.46 Thedebate will likely go on.

Revealing the names of informer priests

In 2000, the Council for the Study of Securitate Archives startedto verify the past of the candidates running in the local and gen-eral elections organized that year, and concomitantly acceptedcitizen requests for the investigation of journalists and university


46.22, 9-15 December 1997.


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presidents. Frustrated with the Orthodox leaders conservativeposition and continued opposition to democratic principles ofaccepting sexual, ethnic, and religious diversity, civil societyactivist Gabriel Andreescu asked the Council to reveal theSecuritate informers within the Synod, a request Teoctistdenounced as an inadmissible act of blackmail and intimida-tion. Andreescu told journalists he could explain Orthodoxopposition to democratization only as perpetuation of Churchcollaboration with communist authorities, as demonstrated bythe prelates support for communist policies, Corneanus allega-tions that Orthodox leaders worked with the Securitate, and therevelation that collaboration seemingly affected other OrthodoxChurches in the communist block. Indeed, Moscow newspapers

alleged that Russian Patriarch Alexy and four of the six RussianSynod members were undercover KGB agents.47

Initially, the Council pledged to answer Andreescus requestpromptly, but then announced that investigating only Orthodoxleaders amounted to discrimination. Under considerable pres-sure from the Orthodox Church to either investigate the heads ofall officially registered religious denominations or no religiousleaders at all, and insistence from other churches that

Andreescus request did not refer to them, the Council took a fullyear to launch verifications into the past of all religious leaders inRomania.48 In August 2001, the Council announced that it had

studied the files of sixty religious leaders and foundout that somehad been both tortured and torturers, but refused to specifynames.49 Contrary to the law, the final results never reached thepublic because either archival data analysis was never finalizedor the Council chose to keep it secret. Andreescus request andtheCouncils wavering reaction became the subject of much jour-nalistic scrutiny. Some writers denounced Andreescu for daringto discredit the most credible institution in the land and a pillar ofthe Romanian ethnic identity; others criticized the Church for notcoming clean and admitting to its past mistakes and pointed out


47.Ziarul de Ias,i, 9 September 2000.48. Ibid., 8 March 2001.49. Ibid., 21 August 2001.


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that the Church must not be equated with tainted individualpriests and hierarchs.50

The Orthodox Churchs proposal that religious figures beexempted from verificationsin spite of Law no. 187receivedsupport from the then ruling Social Democrats and the mainopposition formation, the chauvinistic Greater Romania Party,

which sees Orthodoxy as the cornerstone of Romanian identity.Prodemocratic opposition parties were far less enthusiastic.Leaders of the center-leftist Democratic Party rejected limiting thescope of the law and allowing priests to hide their past, ongrounds that informer priests could claim no Christian moralstanding.

51However, the parliamentary committee overseeing

the Romanian Information Service, where the Social Democrats

and the Greater Romania Party formed a clear majority, viewedthe proposal favorably. While formally not overseeing the Coun-cil, the committee can indirectly affect Council activity byrestricting the number of files the Council can access.

The Orthodox Church presented its proposal in a 2001 letter,which argued that as an independent institution, it was notobliged to obey secular laws; otherwise the separation of churchand state principle and Romanias commitment to democracy

were called into question. In response, Council member MirceaDinescu threatened to resign if his institution looked for devils[Securitate informers] onlyoutside theChurch, andhis colleague

Andrei Ples,u said that church representatives cannot have a spe-cial status, they are part of the society. Dinescu believed that itis benefic for the Church if names of tainted priests are disclosed.The people will trust the Church more knowing there are noinformers among those hearing confession. Ticu Dumitrescusaid, There were informers in all social categories. What wouldthe notary public say if the priest is exempted?52 Following Lib-eral leader Radu Stroe, Church representatives must obey thelaw, which must be the same for everyone. As the most trustedinstitution, the Church should hide nothing. The priests who


50. Ibid., 15 March 2001.51. Ibid., 28 March 2001.52. Ibid., 7 July 2001.


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sinned are individually responsible, not the Church.53Ziarul deIas,icontended that the moral foundation for disclosing thenames of tainted priests is the monopoly on sincerity priestsenjoy in a society harassed by the state. Unless names were dis-closed, Romanias moral rebirth would take place only after sev-eral generations die, and the Church would be placed in theprivileged position of judging itself its tainted clergy. The dailyrejected the Orthodox claim that exemption was needed to pro-tect the sacrament of confession by saying that the informerpriest was the first to break the secret of the confessional and bydoing so entered the land of the mundane, governed by secularlaws.

54

Some clergymembers agreed with this position. Known for his

moral rectitude and anti-communist position, Father SandiMehendint,i declared that the priests are part of the Romaniansociety and should not be exempted from our past and presentmistakes. We should not refuse to take responsibility before ourflock.

55For Father Costica*Popa, We, the priests should know

our hierarchs, who evaluate us and decide for us. Relationsamong clergy are tense and administrative issues affectedbecause former Securitate collaborators were promoted tochurch leadership positions. . . . To forgive is to know, repent,and give up evil. Even if the civil society does not care, we, thepriests, should try to clarify things. Files of Securitate collabora-

tors should be open at least to the clergy, for us to understandhow many priests had a double discourse.56 In mid-2001, Capota*and Popa asked for the opening of the files of all Orthodoxpriests.57

Most Church leaders opposed verifications. Bishop of SuceavaPimen Suceveanul said priests were obliged to inform and admit-ted that after a visit abroad he of course signed reports, but gaveinformation that could harm no one.58Without offering details,Ploies,teanu admitted to having a Securitate informer file. Insist-


53.Cotidianul, 3 July 2001.54.Ziarul de Ias,i, 10 July 2001.55.Evenimentul Zilei, 10 July 2001.

56.Ziarul de Ias,i, 5 July 2001.57.Evenimentul Zilei, 4 July 2001.58.Cotidianul, 4 July 2001.


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ing that the Church was innocent until proven guilty, hereminded that thousands of priests refused to collaborate andthat no hard evidence proved that information from confessionreached the Securitate. Ploies,teanu made several points worthmentioning. First, he said Dinescu was wrong to equateinformer priests with breaking the secret of the confessionalbecause it was more likely that the Securitate was not interestedin the information obtained this way, presumably either becauseit could get it by someother means orbecause itwas too personalto be of real use. It is known that the political police used themost trivial data to blackmail informers and their victims, and thatnoother means of data gathering couldpenetrate as deeply into apersons intimate space as the confession. Second, Ploies,teanu

complained that the press grossly manipulated the position ofthe Church, which did not oppose clergy verification, but merely

voiced dissatisfaction with the process and the antichristianand anti-Orthodox stand of some College members. However,the Orthodox Church did not simply state its position on fileaccess; it vigorously lobbied the government to amend the legis-lation such that priests were not verified. Third, Ploies,teanuannounced that the Church wished to be part of verifications.However, the Council must remain independent from the politi-cal class and the accused groups, and current legislation allowsno institution or social group to interfere with investigations.

Last, Ploies,teanu noted that the clergy was the only social cate-gory verified in toto (from the priest in the remote village to thePatriarch).59 The law lists other social groups subject to investiga-tion, but none are so strictly hierarchical or represented in bothurban and rural areas as are religious denominations, and espe-cially the Orthodox Church.

The Churchs request foramending the law won the support ofPresident Ion Iliescu. A former high-ranking communist officialtrained in the Soviet Union, Iliescu became Romanias first post-communist president in 1990 and renewed his mandate in 1992.


59. Ploies,teanu alleged that in 1997 was threatened with the files public disclosure after criti-

cizing then-Premier Victor Ciorbea. Following Ploies,teanu, the blackmailer suggested thatthe file would conveniently disappear from the archive if his attitude toward the govern-ment improved.Cotidianul, 9 and 11 July 2001.


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Four years later, he lost the presidency to Christian DemocratEmil Constantinescu, who embarrassed Iliescu when in a tele-

vised debate asked him if he believed in God. A surprised Iliescuwas unable to respond promptly but realized that religious issuesand symbols could bring additional political capital. After hisreturn to the presidency for his last four years in 2000, Iliescu wascareful to woo the Orthodox Church and regularly attend reli-gious ceremonies. In July 2001, President Iliescu publicly statedthat, in his opinion, Law no. 187 violated the separation of churchand state constitutional principle and that no state institutionshould decide on church matters.60 Dinescu replied that theCouncil deals not with churches and priests, but with thoseengaged in political police activities [and] if we do not disclose all

files and all informer names, then the Council is useless.61With-out consulting their colleagues, Council president Onis,oru andleader of the parliamentary committee supervising the Informa-tion Service Ion Stan agreed that clergy files be verified only atthe request of religious leaders. This private agreement, which

was not binding unless the Council and the committee adoptedit, was denounced as the result of OrthodoxChurchpressure.

62In

April 2004, the committee proposed changes to Law no. 187 toread that verifications of clergy members are started only at therequest of religious leaders.63 By denying ordinary citizens theright to demand investigations of priests, the changes effectively

exempt the clergy from verifications, a privilege other socialgroups are likely to ask for in the near future.

Conclusion

Fifteen years after the collapse of the communist regime, theRomanian public is yet to have access to key documents reveal-ing the activity of the Securitate, its vast network of spies andinformers, and its relationship with the Orthodox Church. In acountry where conspiracy theories abound, delayed transitional


60.Ziarul de Ias,i, 7 July 2001.61. Cristian Galeriu,Sfera politicii93-94 (2001): 36-40.62.Cotidianul, 10 July 2001.63.Romnia Libera, 2 April 2004.


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justice has bred a web of convoluted scenarios and a myriad ofcontradictory revelations that have gradually blurred the linebetween victims and their victimizers and turned the shame ofindividual guilt into collective indifference. Many Romanianintellectuals believed that as the countrys major religiousdenomination, the Orthodox Church must lead the way towardmoral rebirth and an honest reassessment of the past. They weredisappointed when Church leaders chose to defend their collab-oration with communist authorities and explain it away as a merehuman weakness. However, to measure the Church, the intellec-tuals used a yardstick they only reluctantly applied to their ownactivity.


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Devils Confessors

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