The State and the Church during the Reign of Alexandru Ioan Cuza
The State and the Church during the Reign of Alexandru Ioan Cuza

Summary/Abstract: The emergence of the Romanian state after the unification of the two Romanian principalities – Wallachia and Moldovia – created the premises for the development of internal policies that would lead to the liberation of society from the canons of the feudal order. In order for this political process to be successful, it required both the assistance of Western powers and the support of local elites who had embraced the Western model and civilization. The formation and modernization process of the Romanian state from the mid-nineteenth century is a current issue worth revisiting. This is especially the case given that after the communist parenthesis, Romania underwent a new transition period where the classical paradigms on which the national state was founded entered a period of crisis. The article addresses one of the reform policies promoted by the Cuza reign with the help of the revolutionary elites who participated in the Revolution of 1848 in the two Romanian principalities, namely the secularization of monastic assests. The article explains the stages and mechanisms that led to the achievements of the first main reform in Romania. Furthermore, it presents the internal and external implications of imposing the reform in the process of developing a national policy. This reform is seen as an instrument of imposing a national policy, a form in which national sovereignty was asserted, and at the same time a means to express an autonomous internal policy.

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