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A PORTRAIT OF PATRIARCH JUSTINIAN PAINTED BY RADIO FREE EUROPE

G. Manea

Abstract

We should state right from the beginning that this portrait is not very flattering for the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church. All the news, reports and information about Patriarch Justinian create the image of a hierarch responsible for the abdication of the Church in front of the Communists. For Radio Free Europe his Patriarchat, especially in the 50s, is painted all in red being the one who accepted the entire policy of the regime in regard to the Church, that is the Marxist propaganda in the monasteries, reducing the number of monks and nuns, closing monasteries, forcing the retirement of some unwanted bishops, using the Church and the clergy for the peace rhetoric of the Communist regime, among the Romanian believers but especially abroad. Also, the past and present ties of Patriarch Justinian with the highest leaders of the Romanian Workers' Party, even with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, were blurry, unclear and inappropriate being an extra reason to catalog him as a friend of the Communists. On the other hand, for this portrait Radio Free Europe has used partial information, obtained from Romanian refugees, persons claiming to know the Patriarch or lower-rank officials and rarely official documents. That is why this reports were consider, by Free Europe itself, only ”fairly reliable”.

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