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THE MEN OF THE CHURCH AND THE GREAT UNION OF 1918. BISHOP MIRON CRISTEA AND METROPOLITAN VASILE MANGRA

G. MANEA

Abstract

There are already abundant articles, studies, and even monographs that try - some with godliness, others with methodical acreditation - reconstruct the presence, work and contribution of the Romanian Orthodox Church as a whole or of its people to the fulfillment of fundamental national ideas such as the Unification of the Principalities, obtaining Independence or the Great Union of 1918. We can not neglect the importance of these scientific achievements, but we can say that some of them have been preoccupied to propel proudly the names of priests or hierarchs who have served the Union and have only lapidally inventoried those Church representatives who were absent or even indifferent to this great work. A right account is also preferable in this direction, and it forces us to weigh more and more to get closer to the look of that time. On the one hand, the Romanian Orthodox Church has taken courage on a mission that is not quite easy, to preserve national unity, both spiritual and political. It has built a special vision in this respect and we will invoke here the name of the first Patriarch of Romania, Miron Cristea. On the other hand, we can not ignore the realities of a relationship that is not without tension between the Church and the secular authority at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the next one, which is why the clergy have been shown to be a builder of the national ideal. We therefore propose to evoke, as much as the editorial space of a study allows us, the names of the people of the Romanian Orthodox Church who, by their deeds or thoughts, marked the saving act of the Great Union. In the pages below, we will find Miron Cristea, an apostle of the Romanian unity, but also the least known Vasile Mangra, the one who has been accused of not being able to understand and act in the spirit which the Romanians wanted in 1918.

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