Religion under Ceausescu

The Romanian Orthodox Church was more or less tolerated by the Marxist–Leninist atheist regime, though controlled through "special delegates" and excluded from the public space; the regime generally focused on individuals. Its members' actions, both laity and clergy, range broadly from opposition to the regime and martyrdom, to survival, silent consent or collaboration. Not only the limited access to the Securitate and Party archives or the events' recentness, but the particularities of each individual and situation, the understanding each had about how their own relation with the regime could influence others and how it actually did, make such a task cumbersome.

The Romanian Communist Party, which gained power at the end of 1947, initiated mass purges that decimated the Orthodox hierarchy. Three archbishops died suddenly after expressing opposition to government policies, and thirteen more "uncooperative" bishops and archbishops were arrested. A May 1947 decree imposed a mandatory retirement age for clergy, allowing authorities to pension off old-guard holdouts. The 4 August 1948 Law on Cults institutionalized state control of episcopal elections and packed the Holy Synod with Communist supporters. In exchange for subservience and enthusiastic support for state policies, as well as 2,500 church buildings and other assets from the now-outlawed Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, the government provided salaries for bishops and priests, and financial subsidies for the publication of church books, calendars and theological journals. By January 1953 some 300-500 Orthodox priests were being held in concentration camps, and after Patriarch Nicodim's death in May 1948, the party succeeded in having the ostensibly docile Justinian Marina elected to succeed him.

The church's situation began to improve in 1962, when relations with the state suddenly thawed, an event that coincided with Romania's pursuit of an independent foreign policy course that saw the élite use nationalism to secure its position against Soviet pressure. The Romanian Orthodox Church, as an intensely national body which had made significant contributions to Romanian culture from the 14th century, was a natural partner. As a result of this second co-optation, now as an ally, the church was able to recover dramatically. Its diocesan clergy numbered about 12,000 in 1975, and by then it was already publishing eight high-quality theological reviews, including Ortodoxia and Studii Teologice. Orthodox clergymen consistently supported the Ceauşescu régime's foreign policy, refrained from criticism of domestic policy, and upheld the Romanian line against the Soviets (over Bessarabia) and the Hungarians (over Transylvania). As of 1989, two metropolitan bishops even sat in the Great National Assembly. The church maintained its silence when some two dozen historic Bucharest churches were demolished in the 1980s, and when plans for systematization (including the destruction of village churches) were announced. A notable dissenter was Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, imprisoned for a number of years and expelled from Romania in June 1985 after signing an open letter criticizing and demanding an end to the regime's violations of human rights.

In order to fit its new circumstances, the Orthodox Church constructed a new ecclesiology to justify its subservience to the state in supposed theological terms. The "Social Apostolate" doctrine, developed by Patriarch Justinian, declared that the church owed its allegiance to the secular government and should be of service to that government. The Social Apostolate called on clerics to become active in the People's Republic, laying the foundation for the church's submission to and collaboration with the state. With recalcitrants removed from office, remaining bishops adopted a servile attitude, endorsing Ceauşescu's concept of nation, supporting his policies, and applauding his ideas about peace.

After the 1989 Romanian Revolution, the Church never admitted of willingly collaborating with the régime, but several Romanian Orthodox priests have admitted publicly after 1989 that they have collaborated with and/or were informers for the Securitate, the Romanian Communist secret police. A prime example was Bishop Nicolae Corneanu, the Metropolitan of Banat, who admitted his efforts on the behalf of the Communist Party, and denounced clergy activity with the Communists, including his own, as "the Church's prostitution with the Communist régime".