Bucharest, Romania - Thousands of Greek Catholic believers took part yesterday in a religious ceremony that transformed their church into the second European Major Archbishopric.
Over 2,000 Greek Catholic believers and hundreds of priests yesterday gathered in the town of Blaj to attend the religious ceremony that marked the most important event in the life of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church: the official raising of the Romanian Church United with Rome to the dignity of a Major Archiepiscopal Church.
Since 1994, the Romanian Greek Catholic Church has been led by the Most Reverend Lucian Muresan, Archbishop of Fagaras and Alba Iulia, who on 16 December 2005 became its first Major Archbishop when it was raised to the rank of a Major Archiepiscopal Church by the order of Pope Benedict XVI.
During yesterday's religious service, 75-year-old Muresan was formally ordained as Major Archbishop by Cardinal Bishop Ignatiu Moussa Daoud, who is Vatican's Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. Daoud was one of the cardinal electors who participated in the 2005 papal conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI.
"The Major Archbishop is almost a Patriarch, as it has the same duties, the same rights, and the same responsibilities," Daoud explained to the people gathered in the beautiful yard of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Blaj.
"It is a historical event for the Romanian Catholic church and this is why I am so touched," added Major Archbishop Muresan.
According to Metropolitan councilor William Bleizziffer, the ceremony is of great importance for all Greek Catholics, as Romania became the second European country to formally have a major Greek Catholic Archiepiscopal Church. The Ukrainian Greek Catholic church is the other European Major Archbishopric.
"I am very proud to be here today. This event is very important for me, as the Romanian Greek Catholic church has finally gained the statute it deserved," said Vincentiu Cernea, one of the thousand common people who came from all over the country to witness the ordaining of Muresan.
In the Catholic church, a major archbishop is an Eastern Rite hierarch to whose archiepiscopal see is granted the same jurisdiction in his autonomous particular church that an Eastern-rite patriarch has in his, but is less prestigious than a patriarchal see. Major Archbishops rank below patriarchs but immediately precede primates in the order of precedence of Catholicism.
The Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek Catholic is an Eastern Rite or Greek Catholic church, which uses the Byzantine liturgical rite in the Romanian language.
The church has four other dioceses in Romania and one, directly subject to the Holy See, in the United States of America
The history of the Romanian Greek Catholics started in 1700, when many of the Romanians of Transylvania, headed by Bishop Atanasie Anghel, entered into full communion with the See of Rome, while keeping their Byzantine liturgical rite.
In 1948, the Communist regime that had taken power deposed all the bishops of this Greek Catholic Church and on 21 October 1948, the 250th anniversary of its union with the Roman Catholic Church, arranged the "natural" passage of all its members, who were then some 1,500,000 to the Romanian Orthodox Church. Some of their property, including four cathedrals, was given while the rest were confiscated.
The Catholic bishops and many Greek Catholic priests were arrested for "undemocratic activity," mainly for refusal to give up ties with the Holy See. In the meantime, the Orthodox Church was purged of priests distant to the regime and, for the next 40 years, it had good relations with Communist authorities.
After more than forty years of illegally surviving only in secrecy, the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek Catholic, was able to appear again in public only after the 1989 anti-communist Revolution.
With some delay, some of the church's property, in particular the cathedrals of Cluj, Fagaras, Lugoj and Oradea, which the Communist government had transferred to the Orthodox Church, have been restored to the Greek Catholics.