The hierarchic separation of the Romanian Orthodox Church from the Serbian Orthodox Church 1864-1868

Abstract

The study deals with the beginning of the process of hierarchic separation of the Romanian Orthodox Church from the Serbian Metropolitan See of Karlovci inaugurated by the process of establishing the national Orthodox churches. Initiated at the end of the 18th century in the Orthodox churches of the Austrian Empire, the phenomenon rendered topical the relationship between ethnicity and denomination as well as the interdenominational and interethnical relations between the peoples of the Eastern part of the Austrian monarchy. The Romanian-Serbian ecclesiastic relations which functioned in the 18th century within the framework of the Orthodoxy of Austria, under the sign of the 'Illyrian privileges', was deeply affected by the progress of secular thought and modern nationalism, by the impact of liberal ideas which contributed to the dissolution of the old denominational solidarity. At the beginning of the 19th century the phenomenon developed from confrontation to separation, a decisive moment in the evolution of this process being the revolution of 1848 when the Romanians have for the first time proclaimed the separation from the Serbian ecclesiastic hierarchy. The liberal régime established in 1860 in Austria initiated a new stage in the process of the Romanians' separation from the Serbian hierarchy of Karlovci which, at the same time, represented the last stage in the attempt to restore the national Metropolitan Church. The separation was supported by the imperial as well as the Hungarian political circles, chiefly on political grounds imposed by the alignment of forces within the monarchy, by the relationship between the dinasty and the nations of the Empire, by the interethnic relations. The year 1863 was crucial for the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Church within the framework of the reappraisal of Vienna's attitude towards the Romanians and of Transylvania's part in the new constitutional organization of the monarchy. The Illyrian Congress of 1864 and the Metropolitan Synod that followed dealt with the issue of separation on the background of Romanian-Serbian denominational tension in parishes. The study reconstructs the Romanians' attitude towards the Congress, the position of the Romanian representatives in the Synod, the Synod's decisions concerning the separation matter, the Romanians' platform in the negotiations regarding the practical, administrative aspects of separations, the final conclusions of the negotiations of 1865 and the beginnings of the separation proper represented by the establishment of the Romanian Metropolitan Church. Pushed in the middle ground since 1866. after the failure of the negotiations of 1864-1865. the separation issue was resumed in 1868 by the National Ecclesiastic Congress of Sibiu, which opened a new stage in the process of separation in which the negotiations aiming at an amiable agreement altered with judicial confrontations in courts of justice designated by the Hungarian Ministry for this very purpose, and persisted until the First World War.

Austro-Ugarska imperija je tokom XIII i XIX veka nastojala da u svoje interese iskoristi napore pravoslavnih vernika da formiraju nacionalne crkve. Zato je podržavala želju Rumuna da se odvoje od srpske Karlovačke mitropolije i formiraju rumunsku pravoslavnu mitropoliju.