TABOR - Tradition and Contemporaneity in the Romanian Orthodox Church
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Patriarch Nicodim Munteanu and King Carol II. Election and investment of a patriarch during Carol’s regime
The death of Patriarch Miron Cristea, Prime Minister in office of Romania, led to the need to appoint, invest and install a new Patriarch. Far from being the result of simple debates within the Holy Synod or the Parliament, the choice of the metropolitan Nicodim Munteanu was decisively related to the approval and involvement of King Carol II. The investiture ceremony, held on July 5, 1939, though tedious and full of emotion, underlined, through the speeches of the Patriarch and the King, the redefinition of the Church-State relationship. Thus, after a maximum closeness and even subordination of the Church by the regime during the pastorate of Miron Cristea, the election of the new patriarch marked the establishment of a new type of relations between institutions: a just collaboration and devoid of excesses.
 

PAUL-ERSILIAN ROŞCA