Models of Church Union and the Transylvanian Romanians' Union with Rome
Models of Church Union and the Transylvanian Romanians' Union with Rome

Summary/Abstract: Historiographical approaches to the problem of the Transylvanian Romanians' union with the Church of Rome have always engendered conflicting attitudes. In time, they took a turn for the worse, especially as the Romanian denominational majority failed to understand this phenomenon as favorable and constructive, if not at the level of earthly realities, at least within the context of transcendent truth, which is the very foundation of church itself. Historiographies associated with theological thought, denied one another's achievements, seeking to display the advantages of each standpoint in sharp contrast to the values advocated by the opposite side. The antinomy still holds, at least in grasping nowadays Romanian denominational realities. If the Romanian Uniate Church aims at restoring its wholeness, which has been a dynamic reality in the Romanian modern world, the Orthodox Church strives to resist by nourishing an integrationist illusion; but the body of the Romanian church will never be unitary and indivisible in the strict terms advocated by contemporary Orthodoxy. Ecclesiastical movements are living phenomena, which should be met with flexibility and efforts to turn to account the circumstances, starting from convergences in mutual relations. This was the case with the phenomenon of the Transylvanian Romanians' religious union.

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