RESTITUTION OF PROPERTY, RELIGIOUS COMPETITION AND SENSE OF JUSTICE: CLAIMS OVER THE ROMANIAN GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH PATRIMONY
RESTITUTION OF PROPERTY, RELIGIOUS COMPETITION AND SENSE OF JUSTICE: CLAIMS OVER THE ROMANIAN GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH PATRIMONY

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on disputes over the Romanian Greek Catholic patrimony after 1990. Based on extended ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Transylvania, in three local situations (Bixad, Cluj and Ieud), it analyses the strategies and the arguments put forward by the persons and institutions involved in the disputes, and in particular the two main actors: the Greek Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. The first claims ownership over the buildings used by the latter. While the Greek Catholic Church notably used a juridical argument, based on owner’s rights, the Orthodox Church used a demographic argument, based on the number of believers attending each church. Many other arguments are presented. A particular emphasis is put on the interrelation between juridical and non-juridical forms of (dis-)agreement in situations of potential conflict. The article stresses the gap between legal decisions and their implementation in practice, and shows that such decisions do not systematically prevent violence. Almost twenty years after the beginning of the claims, and despite the failure to agree on a global frame to resolve the Greek Catholic patrimony problem, most conflicts were nevertheless resolved peacefully. One explanation for this general calm is the building of new churches, both by the Greek Catholic and the Orthodox Churches. Another possible answer has to do with the relative failure of the Greek Catholic renewal process in Romania. Finally, as a result of massive migrations from Romania in the last years, it seems that the struggle over property has also calmed down by lack (or at least weakening) of contenders.

• Details
• Contents