Brief History of the Romanians

The civilisation in the Carpathian-Danubian region                                                                                                                                                                 

The history of the Romanians is the history of a steadfast people that has followed its own course of action, of spiritual culture giving birth to genuine durable values which entered the patrimony of world culture. In spite of all the vicissitudes, the unitary people in the Carpathian-Danubian region has kept its continuance of the cultural and spiritual life, its ethnic and linguistic community. The great historian Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940) wrote in 1938:

"It is a people which, through its ancestors, has millennary roots not once, but four times; this is our pride and this is our power".

Written information about the Carpathian-Danubian territory goes back only 2500-2600 years ago. The first piece of information is given by the Greek historian and geographer Hecateus (the 6th century BC) and it refers to the existence of two Getic tribes in the south of Dobrogea. The note of the great historian Herodotus is of greater importance and refers to the Getae who, in 514 BC, fought the huge army of the Persian king Darius. The latter attacked the Scythians who lived in the north of the Black Sea. The so-called "Primitive commune" or the prehistoric period offered us information about the inhabitants of these lands only through archaeological researches and diggings, which proved the existence of the generations that had lived there since time immemorial. In the territory between the Carpathians, the Danube and the Black Sea, there had been human settlements a couple of thousands of years before. Traces going back to the Paleolithic, approximately 2,000,000 years ago; were discovered in Bugiulesti, Valcea county, on the river valley, inside or outside the Carpathian arch.

During the Mesolithic Age (10000 - 5500 BC) and during the Neolithic, the age of the polished stone (5500 - 1800 BC), the human settlements grew in number and the traces left by the inhabitants diversified. The archaeological researches, as well as the accidental findings, prove that on the Romanian land remarkable civilisations flourished in those times. The findings also show the high level of knowledge in the work of clay and a unique artistic sense. 

These cultural areas were named after the names of the regions where the most important discoveries have been made. The ancestors of the Romanians created cultures such as: Cris (in the River Cris area, in the West of Transylvania -the oldest neolithic type), Turdas (in the centre of the Carpathian arch - the linear ceramics is characteristic to that area; worth mentioning are the clay slates discovered at Tartaria, on the Mures; on these slates an archaic writing was found, resembling the one used in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago); Cucuteni (in the north-west of Iasi - an admirable pottery in red, white and black characterizes it); Boian (in the north of Wallachia; ceramics with ornaments in the shape of hooks, on white); Vadastra (in 0lt county - ceramics with white and red drawings); Gumelnita (Ilfov county -statues made of clay and bone, representing the human being); Hamangia (in Dobrogea) - gave birth to two masterpieces of the Neolithic - statuettes of black clay: a man, "The Thinker", and a woman, sitting down. These figurines are unique in the art of the Neolithic and are known all over the world.

The copper and bronze metallurgy contributed during the following centuries to the progress of the proto-Thracian communities. It also encouraged the appearance of tribal unions which established economic relationships with the Greek culture from the south of the Balkan Peninsula.

The Dacians:" he bravest and the fairest of all the Thracians"

During the first millennium BC, the individualizing process of the Geto-Dacians tribes, with regard to the ethnic linguistic and cultural groups, took place. The populations in the Carpathian-Danubian region were influenced during that millennium by the Scythians (the 6th century BC), by the Greeks (the 7th-6th centuries BC) and by the Celts (300-280 BC). They all emiched the spiritual culture of the native Geto-Dacians. The only difference between the Getae and the Dacians was the region where each of them lived; the first ones lived outside the Carpathian arch, while the latter occupied the Transylvanian Plateau in Banat. The Geto-Dacians are first mentioned in connection with the Persian King Darius expedition in 514 BC The historian Herodotus wrote about the Getae that they were "the, bravest and the fairest of all the Thracians". At that time, the Geto-Dacians were a well-structured cultural, ethnic and linguistic group, which led to their unification in a powerful state. Burebista (82-44) unified the political and military formations of the Geto-Dacians. In the first century before Christ he put the bases of a powerful Dacian state which occupied the area between Bohemia and the Black Sea, its centre probably being in Argedava (on the River Arges ). After Burebista's death (44 Be) the centralized Dacian state began decaying. Yet, in the second half of the first century A.D., the Dacians under the rule of Decebal (87-106 reorganised their political, military and religious centre in the Orastie Mountains, in Transylvania, at Sarmizegetusa. Menaced by the Roman invasion, the Dacians went on forays south of the Danube. They defeated the Roman army at Tapae, in Banat. Two wars followed (101-102 and 105-106) and the Roman army under the command of Trajan finally managed to defeat King Decebal's army. The latter commited suicide while Trajan transformed a major part of Dacia in a Roman province. The massive and organised colonization, the use of the Latin language and the assimilation of the Roman civilization led to the Romanization of the local inhabitants. This fact resulted in the formation a Dacian-Roman population, which is an essential element in the Romaniansâ€^TM ethnogenesis process. The Geto-Dacian population did not lose its independence, but it was strongly influenced by the Roman cultur, and civilisation.

The formation of the Romanian people and its language 

After the retreat of the Roman army (271 A.D.), the Dacian- Roman population kept earning its existence the same way: by practising agriculture and shepherding. From a political, economic and cultural point of view, it was under the influence of the Roman Empire and, later on, under that of the Byzantine Empire. These two empires, which were in the south of the Danube, expanded their rule up north of the river, and up to the Meridional Carpathians. Dobrogea, the territory between the Danube and the Black Sea, remained under the political, economic and cultural; rule of the two empires. Under these circumstances, the Romanization process went on and at the same time the Christianity preached in the Latin language spread all over. At the beginning of  the 7th century in the Carpathian-Danubian-Black Sea area there was already a Roman people, different from the other Romance peoples formed or forming in the territory of the Romanic Empire. It was different through its language; its oldest idiom "Torna, torna fratre" goes back to the year 587. The migration of the Slavs at the end of the 6th century and the dislocation of the Carpathian-Balkan compact bloc of Romance peoples isolated that different population  accelerating the process oflanguage completion. Between the 7th and the 9th centuries the formation of the Romanian people and of the Romanian language was completed. The Romanian language, through origin, grammatical structure and essential words of the vocabulary, belongs to the Roman languages, being the only direct descendent of the Latin spoken in the Carpathian-Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire.

Romanian, a Neo-Latin language

The Romanian language is, along with the Italian, the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, a continuator of the Latin language which the Romans brought in the conquered provinces of the famous empire. The Romanian language is a Neo-Latin one, the representative of the oriental Latin and, in fact, the only one which survived in a Slavic enviromment. The Romanian language developed in the territory north of the Danube, in Dacia as well as in the southern territory where the Pind Mountains were. The waves of migratory peoples - the Goths, the Huns, the Slavs, the Bulgarians, the Cumans, the Petchenegs etc. - which invaded the territories north and south of the Danube starting with the 3rd century did not fundamentally influence the Romanic population, and later on the Romanian one, they only left traces in toponymy.

The Dacian-Romanian dialect developed taking the actual shape of the Romanian language. The great Romanist Alf Lombard wrote that the Romanian language is "the fourth foot ofthe table", together with the Italian, the French and the Spanish languages. The same Alf Lombard wrote in his book "The destiny of the oriental Latin" that the Romanian language "did not survive as a shipwreck thrown on the shore by waves, or as a vestige, as a remainder, but as a language endowed with all vitality and force, characteristic of the great modern national languages, which is today the expression of the  thoughts of 22 million people".

The Romanians - in the past and nowadays

Nowadays there are approximately 35 million people speaking Romanian. Most of them, more than 20 million, live in Romania as it is today and the others around the boundaries of the country, especially in the north-east and east, in the Republic of Moldova and in Ukraine.

The birth place of the Romanian people, having as kernel the present territory of Romania, extended south of the Danube to the north of the Carpathians, from the Tisa (in the west) and crossing the Dniester, in the east.

In time, large groups of people moved, for instance in the czarist Russia and then in the Soviet Russia. Romanians from Moldavia and North Bucovina were deported to Siberia. Other Romanians were assimilated, as for instance in Hungary. In the modem epoch, there was a Romanian minority of over 300,000 people which came down to 25,000 through an imposed process of Magyarization. Even now the Romanian enclaves south of the Danube are very big, of several millions of people (Macedo-Romanians, Istro-Romanians, Megleno-Romanians) in Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Greece. They preserve their customs and their language, the contact with the ancestral culture. Unfortunately, they do not have schools in the countries where they live. In some countries they are not even recognized as a minority. In the 17th-18th centuries, in the north of Greece,  in Moscopole there was a very powerful Romanian enclave. The south-Danubian Romanians still speak their own dialects (the Macedo-Romanian, the Istro-Romanian, the Megleno-Romanian). In the east, in the west and in the north of the country those living there speak the literary Romanian, for instance the Transylvanian and the Moldavian. Those living in the Republic of Moldova did not have an easy life. Living in Basarabia, which was part of Moldavia, they were occupied and displaced from their native country by the Turks and by the Russians. Yet, they have kept their national identity, they have never forgotten that they belong to Romania.

Starting with the 19th century, large groups of Romanians left far behind the boundaries of the country because of the vicissitudes. They live now in Western Europe, in North and South America, in Australia. Many of them were or are prominent figures in the contemporary world culture, art and science.

They are all part of the big Romanian family and together with those living in Romania they sum up approximately 35 million people.

The Romanians in the Middle Ages, their state organization

During the 10th and the 11 th centuries, as a consequence ofthe development of the feudal relationships, in. the Carpathian-Danubian-Black Sea area small political organizations appeared: duchies or voivodates, the predecessorsl of the great medieval Rornanian states. In Transylvania these! organizations had as rulers voivodes or dukes such as Gelu, Glad, Menumorut, Ahtum. In Moldavia, Wallachia a Dobrogea, they were led by masters, "cnezi" or voivodes, fi instance: Dimitrie, Gheorghe, Sestlav, Satzaa, Tatu, Roman etc..  In the 13th century, the feudal Hungarians completed the conquering of Transylvania which had started in the 10 century through the Hungarian tribes. The Hungarian tribes had settled down in the Pannonia Plain. The Transylvanian voivodate belonged, under a special status, to the Hungarian Crown until Hungary disappeared as a state in 1541.

With regard to the extra-Carpathian areas, in a donation deed signed by the King of Hungary in 1247, there were mentioned the voivodates of Litovoi, of Seneslau, of loan and of Farcas in the south of the Meridional Carpathians and on the Olt Valley. The donation deed was called. "The Diploma of the Johannine Knights" (a religious and military order colonized in Transylvania). These prestate organizations south of the Carpathians unified at the end of the 13th century, under the rule of Tihomir and his son, Basarab I (1324-1352). Basarab managed to win the independence of Wallachia voivodate (which was subordinated to the Hungarian Kingdom) after the battle of Posada, in 1330.

East of the Carpathians, Bogdan I (1359-1365) established the great voivodate of Moldavia. Both voivodes consolidated the independence of their states, defeating more than once the armies of the Hungarian Kingdom.

At the end ofthe 16th century, at the Danube the danger of the invasion of the Ottoman Empire rises. It managed in a very short time to ocuppy the Christian states of the Balkan Peninsula. Under these circumstances, the Three Romanian Principalities - Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia - became the defending bastion of the Christian world facing the danger of  the Islamic expansion. Voivodes such as Mircea the Old (1386-1418), lancu de Hunedoara (1442-1456) Vlad the Impaler (1456-1462), Stephen the Great (1457-1504), Radu de la Afumati (1522-1529), Petru Rares (1527-1538; 1542-1548) defeated the armies of famous sultans such as Baiazid I Ildaram (the Lightning), Muhammed II (the conquerer of Constantino pole) and Soliman the Magnificent. In the 14th century, the Romanian countries were forced to accept the Ottoman suzerainty, nevertheless they kept their autonomy. The Prince of Walachia, Michael the Brave (1593-1601) won the independence of the country in 1595. He united all the Romanians in one single state, the first centralize Romanian state, comprising Wallachia, Transylvania an Moldavia (1600-1601). This union was temporary, being broken up through the interference of the Ottoman Empire, of the Polish Kingdom and of the Habsburgic Empire. They all worried the existence of a powerful Romanian state in their confluence area.  The union was possible due to the unity of language, due to the national conscience which began awakening in the Romanian territory. Having seen what Michael the Brave had achieved, the voivodes of the other three Romanian countries tried to do the same thing. The renowned scholar Dimitrie Cantemir (1693, 1710-1711) ruler of Moldavia and member of the Berlin Academy, laid the bases of the ideological doctrine regarding the unity of the Romanian people. Influenced by the European enlightenment, in Transylvania (which became voivodate in 1661, under the suzerainty of the Habsburgic Empire), the bishop Inocentiu Micu and other Romanian scholars, such as Samuil Micu, Gheorghe Sincai, Petru Maior, loan Budai-Deleanu, crystallized the national ideology, which they sustained through historical, lingvistic and philosophic reasons.

The accomplishment of the modern Romanian state

Supported by the European powers, France and Prussia, Alexandru loan Cuza (1859-1866) achieved the union of Moldavia with Wallachia on 24 January 1859. He unified the army and the administration, he secularized church properties, he promulgated laws for the same purpose: the unification. The new state was internationally recognized under the name of Romania. In 1866, Cuza abdicated. Prince Carol of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen royal family took his place. He was the hospodar of the country between 1866 and 1881, when he was crowned. Carol I was king for 23 years. On 9 May 1877, the Romanian state proclaimed its independence, getting out of the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire; independence was gained arms in hand, in the Romanian-Russo-Turkish war in 1877-1878. It was internationally recognized at the Peace Congress in Berlin (1878).

From the "Small Romania" to the "Greater Romania"

In 1878, Romania was made up of the ancient feudal Romanian States, Wallachia and Moldavia - the latter without Bucovina and Basarabia. Inside the Carpathian arch, Romania was still under foreign occupation. Through the agreement of 1867 between Budapest and Vienna, known as the "Austro-Hungarian dualism", the voivodate of Transylvania was under the domination of Hungary, having no autonomy. After the union of 1859, after independence was won in 1877, the Hungarian Government intensified its political persecution and imposed the Magyarization of the Romanians living in Transylvania. Moreover, the existence of Romanians as a nation was not recognized.

Bucovina was torn off Moldavia's body in 1775 and passed under the rule of the Habsburgic Empire, as a consequence of an agreement with the Ottoman Empire. The Romanians were persecuted here as well, an attempt being made to denationalize them. The eastern half of Moldavia had been annexed to Russia in 1812. In Basarabia, as this Romanian province had been "baptized", the czarist authorities pursued a policy of intense Russification and encouraged the emigration of the Romanians. However, there were colonized Russians, Ukrainians, Bulgarians. No Romanian school was adrnited. The Orthodox Church became an instrument of mystification, through the colonization of Russian priests and the interdiction of mass in Romanian. Only after 1905 Romanian books started appearing again, but in Cyrillic letters. After 1910 they were suppressed. The existence of these Romanian territories inhabited by a majority of Romanians at the beginning of the 20th century, in spite of all vicissitudes, made the Government in Bucharest embrace a political strategy meant to lead to the achievement of the national desideratum: the union of all Romanians in a unitary national state. The first World Conflagration which broke out 1914 was the opportunity they had been waiting for. Romania entered the World Conflagration on 15 August 1916.

Romania's participation in the First World War had only one target: the accomplishment of the national unity. King Ferdinand I (1914-1927), the descendent of Carol I, was one of its . The collapse of the two multinational empires (Austria-Hungary and Czarist) allowed the Romanians in Basarabia, Bucovina and Transylvania freely to choose their destiny and decide the union with Romania. On 27 March/9 April 1918 Basarabia, on 5/28 November 1918 Bucovina, and on 1 December 1918 Transylvania decided to unite with the mother-country-Romania. The reunification of Romania was internationally sanctioned through the postwar peace treaties(1919-1920). In the unitary national state - called the Greater Romania - the democratic constitutional regime brought in force through the Constitution of 1923 facilitated the general economic, social, political and cultural progress of the nation. The economic climax was attained in 1938. However on 23 August 1939 Hitler's Germany and the Soviet Russia signed the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The secret additional protocol referred directly to the territorial dismemberment of Romania. The democratic powers - France and England - could no longer grant the security of Romania. In the summer of 1940, Soviet Russia, Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy forced Romania to cede Basarabia, northern Bucovina, and Herta region to Russia, the north-western Transylvania to Hungary, and southern Dobrogea to Bulgaria. All these territories represented more than a quarter of Romania and of the population which was Romanian in majority. Romania changed its political regime and started fighting the Soviet Russia together with Germany in June 1941. The Romanian armies fought on the east front until the summer of 1944. Following the coup d'etat of 23 August 1944, they joined the Allies and fought on the west front, making their contribution to the liberation of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria. The Paris Peace Treaty (1947) brought back north-western Transylvania within the national boundaries. Basarabia, northern Bucovina, Herta and southern Dobrogea remained outside the boundaries of Romania. The Romanians in the Soviet territories were brutally denationalized. The Soviets massacred, sentto concentration camps and deported to Siberia and Central Asia thousands of Romanians, trying to modify the demographic ratio. At the same time, the stipulations of the Paris Peace Treaty confirmed the maintainance of Romania under the Soviet influence.

From dictatorship to democracy

 The communist regim was installed in Romania with the aid of the Soviet occupant, after the forced abdication of King Michael I, at the end of 1947. Then a period of Sovietisation followed when the repression against those who represented the democracy, against the intellectuals, against the Romanian spirituality began. Through sentences of long years of emprisonment, by sending people to forced labour camps, the opponents or the potential opponents were exterminated. The new leaders tried to introduce the Soviet model in economy, society and culture. They nationalized the production means, they imposed agricultural cooperatives, they tried to falsify the national history, to make the Romanians give up their cultural and spiritual values, not to let them have access to world cultural and scientific values. In 1955 Romania was accepted in the UNO. The peril of becoming a raw materials source for the member states of Comecon determined the communist adminstration in Romania to initiate the breaking-up from the Soviet hegemony. The western world considered communist Romania as the rebellious ally of Moscow. In 1957 Romania turned to the Western countries and made Khrushchov withdraw his Soviet troops from Romania in 1958. Beginning with 1960, the industrialization of the country began against the Soviet will. During the years ofthe Russian-Chinese conflict Romania initiated the derussification, especially in culture. In 1967, the diplomatic relationships with the Federal Germany were resumed, while in 1968 Romania blamed the intervention of the Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia. Romania became a member of the IMF and of the World Bank and declared itself against the nuclear arming.

After 1970, the cult of Nicolae Ceausescu's personality and of his wife, along with the communist regime of dictatorship led to a political crisis, to the violation of the fundamental human rights, to an economic crisis. All this generated massive discontent in society. There were social revolts among which the miners' revolt in the Jiu Valley in August 1977 and the revolt of the inhabitants of Brasov, in November 1987. People from different social enviromments asked radical changes in political and economic structures. Between 17-20 December 1989, in Timisoara there were anticommunist demonstrations with the intervention of the repression forces. On 21 December 1989 powerful unrest broke out in Bucharest. The official buildings were occupied. On 22 December 1989 the dictatorial couple was overthrown and an end was put to 45 years of communist regime.

The National Salvation Front took over power and announced the abolishment of the communist structures, the promotion of a market economy and free elections. All the political parties that existed before World War II were revived (the National Peasant Party, the National Liberal Party, the Social Democratic Party) and over 200 new parties appeared. After the Law of the Political Parties came into force (April, 1996), almost 50 parties still carryon their activity, 11 being represented in Parliament. In eight years, there were two administrative local elections (in February 1992 and in June 1996), three Parliamentary and Presidential elections (May 1990, September 1992 and November 1996), the new Constitution of Romania was voted and promulgated in 1991, having democratic stipulations matching European standards; the Land Law was brought into force in 1991. The land was given back to their owners or to their descendents. The private sector in economy keeps developing. The privatisation of the industrial enterprises is on its way. Mass media developed unexpectedly due to the right to the free speech. Now Romania has the largest number of publications, of private radio and TV channels in the eastern countries in transition. Romania is a member of Council of Europe (1994) and member EU after 2007 January 01. Romania has turned back to democracy for good.

 The ROMANIAN People a CHRISTIAN Born People

The Romanian people abandoned the cult of idols and became Christian in the period of its ethnic and linguistic moulding, in the first four centuries. In the year 62 Saint Apostle Paul underlines the fact that the Gospel was preached "to all creatures under the sky", among which the Scythians, who in the first Christian century lived together with the aboriginal in Dobrogea, which was called Scythia Minor at that time. Saint Apostle Andrew was chosen, by drawing lots, to preach the Gospel to the Scythians. In fact, according to the ecclesiastic history, Saint Apostle Andrew was the first to evangelise the inhabitants north of the Danube. Then Jesus' disciples did the same thing between the first and the third century after Christ. The palaeo christian inscriptions and basilicas, as well as the impressive number of archaeological vestiges unearthed in Dobrogea, in Transylvania and in the other Romanian provinces, prove the existence of an intense Christian life in all lands inhabited by Romanians since the second and the third centuries.

Assuming the role of supporter of the Eastern church, the Romanians contributed to the survival of the Ortodox Christianity and of its creations of civilisation and culture. They also helped the Christian peoples subjugated by the Ottomans preserve their national conscience, then played an important part in their attempt to free themselves and, last but not least, they contributed to the foundation of the modern independent states in this part of the world.

The Metropolitan Seats in Wallachia and Moldavia, which emerged in the 16th century, acted in accordance with the other orthodox churches. They printed doctrine and cult books and teachings in Slavonic, in Greek, in Arabian and Georgian for all the Christians in the east. They also stimulated the original creation in literature and arts. Yet the Romanian territories were divided into three states, therefore  their churches could not ask for autocephalous status from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The unification of Wallachia with Moldavia (24 January 1859) was a step ahead towards gaining autocephaly. On 25 April, 1885, Patriarch Ioachim IV signed the recognition of the autocephalous status of the Romanian Orthodox Church which granted it equal rights with those of the other orthodox churches. At the same time, it dependedon the other churches from a dogmatic, canonic and liturgic point of view. The upgrading of the Romanian Orthodox Church to the rank of Patriarchate was a consequence of the completion of the state unity on 1 December 1918. It also meant the recognition of its century-old fight for the protection of national identity, for the survival of faith in the Romanian countries and in some ancient provinces of the Byzantine Empire, for the shepherding of the spiritual life of the Romanians, who were mostly orthodox.

The recognition deed of the Romanian Patriarchate was signed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 30 July, 1925, through the Patriarch Vasile III of Constantinopole. The Holy Synod is the highest authority of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The Holy Synod deals with spiritual and canon matters and with any other problem within its competence. It is made up of the Patriarch , as the chairman, of six metropolitan bishops, six archbishops, 14 bishops, 2 diocesan dean bishops and 2 dean bishops. The National Church Assembly is the representative central organ of the Romanian Orthodox Church. It deals with administrative matters and matters beyond the competence of the Holy Synod. The supreme administrative organ dealing with matters regarding the entire Church and, at the same time, the executive organ of the Holy Synod and of the National Church Assembly, is the National Church Council. From the point of view of administrative organisation, the Romanian Patriarchate is made up of five Metropolitan Seats, within the boundaries of this country, The Basarabian Metropolitan Seat (revived in December 1992)) within the boundaries of the Republic of Moldova, the Romanian Metropolitan Seat of Germany and of the Central Europe, the Romanian Archbishopric for the Western Europe and the Romanian Orthodox Archbishopric of the United States and Canada, for the needs of the Romanians living abroad.

The Metroplitan Seats have nine Archbishoprics, 14 Bishoprics, 141 rectories and 9,208 parishes.

Abroad, in the neighbouring countries, there are a couple of millions of Romanian Orthodox. Most of them are in the Basarabian Metropolitan Seat and in the north of Bucovina). On 19 December 1992, The Romanian Orthodox Church Synod sanctioned the entering of the Basarabian Metropolitan Seat under its jurisdiction. The Basarabian Metropolitan Seat is autonomous, of old style and it has its premises in Chisinau.

In Diaspora there are approximately 300 Romanian religious communities, of which 250 are Orthodox. The other 50 are Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic or Protestant. Most of the Orthodox communities are subordinated to the Romanian Patriarchate.

The Romanian Orthodox Church has permanent and systematic relations with the other Orthodox Churches and with the Constantinople Ecumenical Patriarchate. There are bilateral contacts between Orthodox Churches and other Christian Churches. The Romanian Orthodox Church is a member of the World Council of Churches and of the European Church Conference. There are 15 officially recognised religious denominations in Romania: the Romanian Orthodox Church, The Greek Catholic Church, the Reformed Church, the Evangelical Church of Augustan Confession, the Armenian Church, the Synod-Presbyterian Evangelical Church, the Unitarian Church, the Old Rite Church, the Muslim Cult, the Mosaic Cult, the Christian Baptist Cult, the Seventh-day Adventist Cult, the Pentecostal Cult, the Church of Christ. There are also 360 religious associations, independent ones or belonging to the cults.

In Romania 19,802,400 persons (86.8% of the population) declared that they belonged to the Orthodox Church. Cults appoint their own ruling organs, without the interference of the state, having religious independence. The state supports them financially, allotting annual funds for the construction of new buildings and for the restauration of assets of national interest which are in the property of the cults.

The Romanian churches, witnesses of the history of this nation, are great architectural and art monuments. They embody the spirit of an ancient culture, the philosophy, the art and the technique of a people and its personality in the world civilisation.