Freedom of religion in Romania refers to the extent to which people in Romania are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.
Romanian law grants freedom of religion, outlaws religious discrimination, and provides a registration framework for religious organizations to receive government recognition and funding (although this is not a prerequisite for being able to practice in the country). The government also has programs for compensating religious organizations for property confiscated during World War II and during the rule of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Representatives of minority groups have complained that the government favors the Romanian Orthodox Church over other religious groups, and there have been several instances of local government and police failing to enforce anti-discrimination laws reliably.
During the existence of the Kingdom of Romania in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the government of Romania systematically favored the Orthodox and Romanian Greek Catholic Churches. Non-Christians were denied citizenship until the late 19th century, and even then they faced obstacles and limited rights. Antisemitism was a prominent feature of Liberal political currents in the 19th century before being abandoned by Liberal parties and adopted by left-wing peasant and later fascist groups in the early 20th century. During World War II, several hundred thousand Jews were killed by Romanian or German forces in Romania. Although Jews living in territories belonging to Romania prior to the beginning of the war largely avoided this fate, they nevertheless faced harsh antisemitic laws passed by the Antonescu government. During the Socialist era following World War II, the Romanian government exerted significant control over the Orthodox Church and closely monitored religious activity, as well as promoting atheism among the population. Dissident priests were censured, arrested, deported, and/or defrocked, but the Orthodox Church as a whole acquiesced to the government's demands and received support from it.
In 2023, the country was scored 3 out of 4 for religious freedom by Freedom House.Freedom House website, Romania page, retrieved 2023-08-08
Demographics According to a 2011 government census, Romanian Orthodox Church adherents constitute 86.5% of the population and Roman Catholics almost 5%. According to the census, less than 1% of the population is Greek Catholic; however, Greek Catholics estimate their numbers at about 2% of the population. Other religious groups include Old Rite Russian Christians; Protestants, including Reformed Protestants, Pentecostals, Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and other Protestant denominations; Jews; Muslims; Jehovah’s Witnesses; Baháʼís; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Zen Buddhists; the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification; and the International Society of Krishna Consciousness. Atheists and nonbelievers represent less than 1% of the population.International Religious Freedom Report 2017 Romania, US Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
According to the census, Old Rite Russian Christians are mainly located in Moldavia and Dobruja. Most Muslims live in the southeast around Constanta. Most Greek Catholics reside in Transylvania. Protestants of various denominations and Roman Catholics reside primarily in Transylvania. Orthodox and Greek Catholic ethnic Ukrainians live mostly in the north. Orthodox ethnic Serbs are found primarily in Banat. Members of the Armenian Apostolic Church are concentrated in Moldavia and the south. Virtually all members of the Protestant Reformed and Unitarian Churches of Transylvania are ethnic Hungarians. More than half of the Roman Catholic and evangelical Lutheran churches in Transylvania are composed of ethnic Hungarians. Approximately 40 percent of the country’s Jewish population of 3,400 resides in Bucharest.
History
Background
Throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern era prior to its independence in the 19th century, the region corresponding to modern Romania was divided between several different polities. During the Middle Ages, the Orthodox Church held extensive power in the Dobruja (controlled by the Second Bulgarian Empire before becoming briefly independent in the 14th century) as well as the independent principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, whereas the Kingdom of Hungary which controlled Banat, Crişana, Maramureş and Transylvania was controlled by a Catholic aristocracy that considered Eastern Orthodoxy to be heretical.
The Ottoman Empire annexed Dobruja in the 14th century, and forced Wallachia and Moldavia to become its tributaries in the 15th. Muslim Nogai Tatars settled in Dobruja, and local gypsy tribes converted to Islam as well. In the 16th century, the Ottomans captured the majority of Banat from Hungary. Meanwhile, the Reformation was spread to territories controlled by John Sigismund Zápolya. Villages were allowed to elect their own pastors, but in practice, only the Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Unitarian faiths received privileged status. Eastern Orthodoxy and Judaism were tolerated while other religions were forbidden.
During this period, government policy toward Jews varied significantly from one ruler or polity to another; at times Jews were encouraged to settle in these lands, and at others they were harassed, attacked in pogroms, or expelled.Rezachevici, September 1995, p. 60 Jews were more consistently favored in territories controlled directly by the Ottoman Empire, although they were later persecuted by the Ottoman Empire's armies in the 18th century.Cernovodeanu, p. 28
By the late 18th century, Moldavia, Wallachia, and Transylvania were at the crossroads of three major empires: the Ottoman Empire, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire. Under Habsburg rule, the Catholic monarchy attempted to convert the region to Catholicism. Protestant churches were handed over to Catholics, and those who broke with the Catholic Church were punished by flogging.Transylvania under the Habsburgs in U.S. Library of Congress country study on Romania (1989, Edited by Ronald D. Bachman). Habsburg policies deprived Orthodox churches of tithes, which were redirected to Catholic (or sometimes Protestant) churches, and the monarchy pressured Orthodox clergy to convert to the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, which retained Orthodox rituals but shared doctrinal points with the Catholic Church, including acknowledging the authority of the Pope. Imperial decrees officially established the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Churches as being equal to the Catholic Church, but these decrees were not enforced in practice. Demands for full religious equality were a core part of the early Romanian nationalist movement in the Habsburg Empire in the late 18th century, but these were denied by the empire, which granted Orthodox Christians the freedom to practice their religion but denied their church formal recognition.The Reign of Joseph II in U.S. Library of Congress country study on Romania (1989, Edited by Ronald D. Bachman).
During the Wallachian Revolution of 1848, anti-Jewish restrictions were passed but rarely enforced, and the Proclamation of Islaz, the primary political document issued by the revolutionists, called for the "emancipation of Israelites and political rights for all compatriots of different faiths.Islaz Proclamation, art.21 After the end of the Crimean War, various political factions courted the support of the Jewish community by promising them full equality.Cernovodeanu, p. 28 Conversion to Christianity was officially encouraged by the authorities, but was seldom practiced by Jews.
Kingdom of Romania
In 1862, Wallachia and Moldavia united to form the United Romanian Principalities. Their population was predominantly Orthodox Christian, with Jews forming the next largest religious group with only 3% of the population. During this period, Jews in Moldavia were frequently attacked by soldiers and civilians, who used scissors to shred Jewish people's clothing (and sometimes to shear men's beards and sidelocks) following the passage of clothing regulations for Jews.Oișteanu (1998), p.241 This behavior was put to a violent end by the intercession of the Army Headquarters.Oișteanu (1998), p.241
In 1866, a constitution was adopted, which officially provided for the freedom of religion and conscience, but also barred non-Christians from citizenship and established the Orthodox Church as the "dominant religion" of the state.. The ban against non-Christians was removed in 1879, but in practice the new provisions still made it extremely difficult for Jews to obtain citizenship.Ornea, p.390; Veiga, p.60 Jews were heavily persecuted, facing both discrimination in employment and being targeted by pogroms, drawing protest from the British government, and many Jews fled to the United States during this period.
The United Principalities became the Kingdom of Romania in 1881. Vocal Jewish activists were deported under the pretense of being "objectionable aliens". In 1893, a law was passed to bar the admission of Jewish children into public schools, and in 1898 they were also barred from attending high schools and universities.Ornea, p.396 In the late 19th and early 20th century, antisemitism fell out of vogue in Liberal political circles but was increasingly endorsed by radical left-wing political movements primarily led by peasants, which claimed to face systemic oppression at the hands of Jews.Ornea, p.395The Jewish-Romanian Marxist Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea criticised Poporanist claims in his work on the 1907 revolt, Neoiobăgia ("Neo-Serfdom"), arguing that, as favourite victims of prejudice (and most likely to be retaliated against), Jews were least likely to exploit: "[The Jewish tenant's] position is inferior to that of the exploited, for he is not a boyar, a gentleman, but a Yid, as well as to the administration, whose subordinate bodies he may well be able to satisfy, but whose upper bodies remain hostile towards him. His position is also rendered difficult by the antisemitic trend, strong as it gets, and by the hostile public opinion, and by the press, overwhelmingly antisemitic, but mostly by the régime itself – which, while awarding him all the advantages of neo-serfdom on one hand, uses, on the other, his position as a Yid to make of him a distraction and a scapegoat for the regime's sins."
Interwar period
As part of the treaties ending World War I, Romania agreed to reverse its policies against Jews, establishing the effective emancipation of Jews.Ornea, p.391 This decision was met with rioting by far-right groups, although many of the issues motivating earlier antisemitic left-wing groups were resolved in this period by the adoption of land reforms which favoured peasants.Veiga, p.62-64 A new constitution was adopted in 1923, which continued to promise the freedom of religion and conscience for the people of Romania. In addition to maintaining the Orthodox Church as the "dominant religion", the Greek-Catholic church was given a status of "primacy before other faiths".Stoica, Stan (coordinator). Dicţionar de Istorie a României, pp. 89–90. Bucharest: Editura Merona, 2007.