Orthodoxy, Nationalism, and Local Identities: a Romanian Case Study
Orthodoxy, Nationalism, and Local Identities: a Romanian Case Study

Summary/Abstract: After 1990 many Western scholars talked about eastalgia, a nostalgia for the communist past. In this paper I approach another kind of nostalgia for the past. I will analyse the relation between religious beliefs, ideology, and the identity of a village community. The community I analyse is called Lăpuşul Românesc (Romanian Lăpuş), a village of about 3,900 people (1,304 households) in the Maramureş District of Northern Transylvania. The village is located in the valley of Lăpuş River, between the Tibleş Mountains to the East and the Maramureş Mountains to the North. Before 1948 all villagers were Greek-Catholics. After 1990, as in many other Transylvanian villages, people did not return to their old religion, although their present religious behaviours demonstrate strong ties to it. Today there are only 40 Greek Catholic families left. My argument is that there is a strong link between the religious feelings of a community and its national identity. I will attempt to reveal the mechanism that links the religious, national, and local identities. The pilgrimage represents a significant instance of the social mechanisms of national, sometimes ethnic, and always religious identifications. Although religion is no longer the prominent marker of national feeling, it is still an important one. My thesis is that the pilgrimage is a cultural pattern that serves as a basis for new “invented traditions”, the expression of strong national feelings in a period of transition that has brought uncertainty not only in economic or social terms, but also in terms of identity. I will analyse the mechanisms of religious identification with the nation, considering that the pilgrimage, in the form it is practised today, has Catholic roots, but is used by the villagers to identify with a nation that is seen as Orthodox.

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