Reconciliation in the ethnic conflict in Transylvania: theological, political and social aspects

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Notes

* An earlier version of this article, ‘A strategy for social reconciliation in the ethnic conflict in Transylvania’, was published in Religion in Eastern Europe, xxiii, 5, October 2003, pp. 1–30.

For Schreiter, the ministry of reconciliation begins with a careful accompanying of victims. This accompaniment is marked by a listening patience that allows the victim to reveal that which is a burden (Schreiter, 1998, p. 88).

Schreiter considers the process of restoration to be the very heart of reconciliation. By restoring the humanity of the victim, which the wrongdoer has tried to destroy, God equates the experience of reconciliation with the experience of grace, which is the restoration of one's damaged humanity in a life‐giving relationship with God (Schreiter, 1998, p. 15).

Moltmann's view on the implications of the cross for life in the world is developed in many of his published works (Moltmann, 1974, 1992, 1993b,c).

Moltmann stresses: ‘Political hermeneutics of liberation reflects the new situation of God in the inhuman situations of men, in order to break down the hierarchical relationships which deprive them of self‐determination, and to help to develop their humanity’ (Moltmann, 1974, p. 319).

Consequently, Christ's death on the cross is atonement because Christ's suffering is God's suffering and because His death is the death which God experienced for all sinners and victims. As Moltmann cautions, ‘Christ did not die crucified because God sadistically crucified His Son through a criminal court decision. The very love of God, which had been wounded by human injustice and violence, became the love of the God that endured pain. In this way, God's anger became His compassion’ (Moltmann, 1992, p. 135).

My translation of the following text:

• Miturile unei naţiuni sînt adevărurile ei vitale. Acestea pot să nu corespundă adevărului; faptul n‐are nici o importanţă. Suprema sinceritate a unei naţiuni faţă de sine însăşi se manifestă în refuzul autocriticii, în vitalizarea prin propriile ei erori. Şi apoi o naţiune caută adevărul? O natiune caută puterea. (Cioran, 1990, p. 29)

The debate around these theories on continuity has been addressed in numerous publications that I have attempted to review critically and impartially in the second part of my unpublished master's dissertation entitled Forgiveness and Reconciliation between Hungarians and Romanians in Transylvania (2001).

David Prodan, a noted nationalist Romanian historian who lived in Cluj, intensified his anti‐Hungarian propaganda through his reassessment of the theory of Daco‐Roman‐Romanian continuity versus the immigration theory in the years following the collapse of Ceauşescu's regime. Not surprisingly, at the celebration of Prodan's 89th birthday, President Iliescu visited Cluj declaring that ‘the main reason for his visit was to offer his good wishes to this illustrious historian’. Today there is a street in Cluj bearing the name of this controversial figure.

Lambru notes that this attempt at relaxing a historical discourse characterised by nationalism became the object of a huge scandal in the Romanian mass media. Those protesting against Mitu's textbook blamed multicultural approaches and the Education Office for its publication (Lambru, 1999).

In 2001 the governments of Hungary and Romania pledged once again that they would take all necessary measures to ensure the preservation of the national, cultural and linguistic identity of the national minorities, and their well‐being and prosperity in their birthplace. Moreover, during the meeting the representatives of both states pledged that they would continue to create the conditions needed to carry out the tasks set out in the memorandum and recommendations of 19 October 2001 of the Subcommittee for Cooperation in Minority Affairs of the Intergovernmental Joint Commission (Declaration, 2002).

The SDP was established in 2001 through a merger between Partidul Democraţiei Sociale din România (the Social Democratic Party of Romania (SDPR)) and the RSDP.

The meeting was attended by the leaders of the main political parties of Romania: Partidul Naţional Ţărănesc Creştin şi Democrat (the Christian Democratic National Peasant's Party), the NLP, the RSDP, Alianţa pentru România (the Alliance for Romania), Partidul Democrat (the Democratic Party) and the DAHR.

In her study Alina Mungiu‐Pippidi notes that several conferences, seminars and works have begun to deal with the delicate Hungarian‐Romanian relations in Transylvania. She asserts that the whole question of whether Romania is ready for democracy or not hangs on the way in which the Transylvanian problem will be dealt with.

The study brings together a number of recent articles by significant Romanian, Hungarian and other political analysts (Miklós Bakk, Sorin Mitu, Renate Weber, Tom Gallagher, Liviu Andreescu, Antonela Capelle‐Pogăcean, Liviu Antonesei, Elek Szokoly) who come into dialogue over Gusztáv Molnár's proposal for the devolution of Transylvania.

Willmer stresses that it may often be the case that the politicians are so secular, and thus so spiritually blind, that they may not think of their actions as reconciling. It is in this context that the theologians could become the interpreters of their actions, and point to them as instances of political forgiveness (Willmer, 2001).

In the view of Orthodox theologian Vicovan, Christian philanthropy has a dual aspect: theoretical and practical. The theoretical approach is made through sermons, lectures and conferences, which focus on the philanthropic activity of the church and are aimed at both clergy and laity. These sermons or lectures have an educational character and focus on biblical narratives interpreted in relation to today's real situations (Vicovan, 2001).

There are a few exceptions. Bishop Nicolae Corneanu was the first Orthodox church official to confess to having been an informant for the communist secret police. He also became the first bishop to keep his word and return the Catholic cathedral in Timişoara (in 1992), and half the Greek Catholic churches which were placed under his jurisdiction by the communists. His reformist perspective, which included his endorsement of the political movement Alianţa Civică (the Romanian Civic Alliance), made Nicolae the most liberal Romanian prelate but also the most marginalised by the ROC administration in Bucharest (Corneanu, 2002).

My translation of the following text:

• Biserica Ortodoxă Română a arătat o oarecare ostilitate faţă de Bisericile non‐ortodoxe şi a criticat prozelitismul agresiv al protestanţilor, neo‐protestanţilor şi al altor grupuri religioase, pe care respectiva Biserică le califică în mod repetat ca fiind ‘secte’. Opoziţia Bisericii Ortodoxe Române în restituirea proprietăţilor religioase către alte culte, cu deosebire a bisericilor greco‐catolice, rămâne o problemă. (Sârbu, 2001)

Most Romanian Neoprotestant theologians and leaders who attempt to participate in the dialogue with civil society are dismissed because of the continuing stigmatising attitude of the ROC towards these so‐called ‘sectarians’.

The most recent example is provided by the bishop of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Romania and political leader of the Consiliul Naţional al Maghiarilor din Transilvania (the National Council of Hungarians in Transylvania) László Tökés, whose extremist political agenda includes claims for the territorial separation of Transylvania from Romania as the only solution to the problems of the Hungarian minority in Romania (Tökés, 2003). Former honorary chairman of the DAHR, Tökés was discarded by the Hungarian party because of his radical views on the constitution of Transylvania as an independent state (Toader and Anghel, 2003).

Lakatos stresses that the leaders of the Hungarian churches have a monthly conference, whereas their relation to other Romanian denominations remains distant (Lakatos, 1998, p. 20).