Engaging Religious Institutions and Faith-Based Communities in Public Health Initiatives: A Case Study of the Romanian Orthodox Church During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The success of public health interventions is highly dependent on the compliance of the general population. State authorities often implement policies without consulting representatives of faith-based communities, thereby overlooking potential implications of public health measures for these parts of society. Although ubiquitous, these challenges are more readily observable in highly religious states. Romania serves as an illustrative example for this, as recent data identify it as the most religious country in Europe. In this paper, we discuss the contributions of the Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC), the major religious institution in the country, to the national COVID-19 mitigation efforts. We present not only the positive outcomes of productive consultations between public health authorities and religious institutions but also the detrimental impact of unidirectional communication. Our work highlights that an efficient dialogue with faith-based communities can greatly enhance the results of public health interventions. As the outlined principles apply to a variety of contexts, the lessons learned from this case study can be generalized into a set of policy recommendations for the betterment of future public health initiatives worldwide.

Constructing Fascist Hagiographies: The Genealogy of the Prison Saints Movement in Contemporary Romania

The paper focuses on the ideological roots of the prison saints movement in contemporary Romania. The text uncovers the interwar and communist conceptual premises upon which the biographies of fascist martyrs for canonisation as saints by the Romanian Orthodox Church were shaped. As martyrs for the Christian faith, those deceased were depicted as respectable figures, showcasing their martyrdom on the same moral footing as the dissidents of former democratic parties opposing communism. Furthermore, the narrative strategies in shaping a fascist hagiography from the interwar up to the post-communist years stand as another critical issue for the present article.

A Debate Concerning the Biblical Mode of Baptism

"Baptism inaugurates a life that daily moves forward to a battle, confident that in each sorrow, there is a more vigorous expression of the presence of the risen Christ. Baptism warns the Christian that if he shares the same life, he must face the same struggle of life unto death so that life is eternally victorious. Recent events in the Romanian Orthodox Church regarding the baptism of infants by immersion have ignited a civil debate and much criticism. The issue of baptism and for that matter, the baptism itself is very important. For the believers especially this is important. However, no matter how important this is, one has to agree that it should never ever lead to division and hate. Unfortunately, it looks like nothing among believers can lead to disagreement more than such discussions about the role of baptism, the meaning of it, and of course, the methods used to perform the baptism. On the other hand, there should be an agreement that ignoring the problems raised by this issue will not solve it at all, but instead creating even more problems and further the gap among many Christians, ultimately. The fact that there is a possibility to discuss this important doctrine as part of a dialog among many denominations, among many religions it will prove the level of one’s maturity to “agree to disagree” with the main goal of learning always and know what to stand for and what is worth fighting for. When it comes to major doctrines special attention should be given to the text, making sure that there is a proper, correct, throughout exegesis as well as a very good lexical and syntactical study. The purpose of this research is to dig deep into the Bible and more specifically exegete the text found in The Gospel of Matthew chapter 3, from verses 13 to 17, then view its theological lessons followed by practical applications."

The Service of the Romanian Orthodox Church to Migrants

Through the concrete steps taken by its members (clergy, believers, and monks), from 1998 until now, the Romanian Orthodox Church has carried out extensive actions to monitor and solve the migration crisis. Thanks to this approach, initiated and improved by its current Primate, His Beatitude, Patriarch Daniel, both in the country and in the diaspora of our Church, the phenomenon of migration was not only be monitored, but also solved both in accordance with Church rules and with State laws, as well as those of the Law of the European Union, that is, of the EU Member States. From our article, the informed reader will be also able to see that, in its actions for monitoring and solving the migration problem, our Church has taken into account both the guidelines issued by the bodies of the Ecumenical Council of Churches and the guiding principles stated by the leaders of the two Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, namely, His Holiness, Pope Francis, and His Beatitude, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, in their joint Declarations on the issue of migration, hence the ecumenical nature of the approach to the issue of migration.

Ecumenical Convergences: Romanian Evangelicals Exploring Orthodoxy

Historically, in Romania, the relations between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the evangelical communities have been characterized by tension and mutual distrust. That is why, unfortunately, there has been no official dialogue between the two communities so far. The present article investigates the theoretical possibility for such an ecumenical dialogue to occur by analysing the contributions of several evangelical theologians who published research studies on theological topics specific to Eastern orthodox theology. Their positions were analysed from the perspective of an inclusive theology which allowed us to identify some common themes for both traditions: the authority in interpreting the Scriptures, salvation as a process, and the Church understood through the application of a perichoretic model. All these convergent themes could constitute the basis for a future official ecumenical dialogue between the evangelicals and the orthodox from Romania.

The Romanian Orthodox Church, the European Union and the Contention on Human Rights

Since the 1990s, there has been conflictual interactions between Orthodox Christian churches and human rights in South Eastern Europe, especially during the process of European integration. In this work, I shall concentrate on the case of the Romanian Orthodox Church and explore its current position towards human rights that has developed within the context of EU membership. Focusing on the influence that European integration has had on the Romanian Orthodox Church, I hypothesise a re-orientation of the latter from a position of closure and a general rejection of human rights in the direction of their partial acceptance, with this being related to its attempt to develop a European identity.