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Romania Other Religions
Romania's Jewish community in the late 1980s numbered
between
20,000 and 25,000, of whom half were more than sixty-five
years
old. Jews enjoyed considerably more autonomy than any
other
religious denomination. In 1983 there were 120 synagogues,
all of
which had been relatively recently restored. For
twenty-five years
the Jewish Federation in Romania had been allowed to
publish a
biweekly magazine in four languages. There were three
ordained
rabbis, and religious education was widely available to
Jewish
children. In addition the government permitted the Jewish
Federation to operate old-age homes and kosher
restaurants. On the
other hand, there were repeated anti-Semitic outbursts in
the
official press and elsewhere that were condoned by the
regime.
Romania also has a Moslem community, which in the late
1980s
numbered about 41,000. Two ethnic groups--Turks and
Tatars--
concentrated in the Dobruja region make up this religious
community.
In the 1980s there were a number of Protestant and neoProtestant denominations that were formally recognized and
ostensibly protected by the Constitution. The Reformed
(Calvinist)
Church, an entirely Hungarian congregation, had a
membership of
between 700,000 and 800,000. The Unitarian Church, also
largely
Hungarian, had between 50,000 and 75,000 members. The
Lutheran
Church had a membership of about 166,000--mainly
Transylvanian
Saxons. Most of the neo-Protestant followers were converts
from the
Romanian Orthodox Church. Of these, the Baptists were the
largest
denomination with 200,000 members, followed by the
Pentacostalists
(75,000 members), Seventh Day Adventists (70,000 members),
and a
few other smaller groups.
The neo-Protestant religions attracted an increasing
number of
followers in later years. The rapid growth, especially
among
Baptists and Pentacostalists, continued throughout the
1970s, and
many young converts from the established churches were
gained. This
trend was troublesome to the regime, because many
neo-Protestants--
especially Baptist clergymen--called on churches to resist
state
interference in their affairs and suggested that the state
should
respect Christians' rights and renounce atheism. In the
late 1970s
and in the 1980s, the regime responded to this
quasi-political
movement with a press campaign attacking the credibility
of the
denominations and with police repression. Many
congregations were
fined heavily, and their most effective leaders and
activists were
arrested or forced to emigrate, whereas others were
threatened with
dismissal from their jobs and the loss of social benefits.
Propaganda, media attacks, and police repression against
Jehovah's
Witnesses were especially harsh. Because the sect remained
unregistered, its mere existence was illegal. The regime
claimed
that the religious beliefs espoused by the sect were
"dangerous,
antihumanistic, antidemocratic, and antiprogressive."
Data as of July 1989
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