Author: Rev. prof. Dumitru Stăniloae (Member of the Romanian Academy)
Keywords: Christianity, Romania, Church, history, unity, linguistics
Abstract:
The celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Union of the Romanian Principalities was a good opportunity for Father Stăniloae to emphasise the contribution of the Church to our national unity over the centuries. Ever since it was created, the Church has supported the union between a people and its faith. This year we celebrate the centenary of the 1918 Union, and one cannot comprehend it properly without understanding the people’s hope to achieve unity, a desire expressed over centuries. Father Dumitru highlights this desire, presenting important linguistic evidence and historical data, of which some is very little known today. The research study is divided into two parts (1. Linguistic Evidence about the Oldness of Christianity in Romania. 2. The Contribution of Orthodoxy to the Preservation of the National Unity and Identity of the Romanian People). Father Dumitru reveals the fact that the unity of the Romanian people could never have been really preserved without the contribution of the Church, and this is simply because the Romanian people was born or appeared in its history as a Christian people. It is for this reason that several times, when others attempted to divide the Romanian people, they tried to destroy their faith and their Church, either by trying to convert them to other beliefs or lately, by atheization, as a supreme form of estrangement. On the other hand, the unity of the country was strengthened by its geographical position, at the borderland between great empires, or between West and East, succeeding over the centuries to accomplish, on all levels “a sort of coincidentia oppositorum, which has given our people a mission. This mission is at the same time difficult and great and it refers to peace-making: this people has the calling to mediate for reconciliation; it is a people who fights for peace and facilitates reunions”.
(Republished from Ortodoxia XXX (1978), nr. 4, pp. 584-603)
Pages: 12-35