CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Ploscariu, Iemima Daniela |
|---|---|
| Title | Pieties of the Nation: Romanian neo-protestants in the interwar struggle for religious and national identity |
| Summary | Neo-protestants (Seventh-Day Adventists, Baptists, Brethren, and Pentecostals) were the fastest growing among the religious minorities in interwar Romania. The American, Hungarian, German, and other European influences on these groups and their increasing success led government officials and the Romanian Orthodox Church to look on them with suspicion and to challenge them with accusations of being socially deviant sects or foreign pawns. Neo-protestants presented themselves as loyal Romanians while still maintaining close relationships with ethnic minorities of the same faith within the country and abroad. The debates on the identity of these groups and the “competition for souls” that occurred in society demonstrate neo-protestants' vision of Romanian national identity challenging the accepted interwar arguments for what it meant to be Romanian. This new religious contribution to Romanian identity developed in part with the growing number of ethnic Romanians adopting these confessions and forming churches separate from the ethnic minorities and as a response to the challenges posed by the Orthodox Church and the state. Romanian neo-protestants presented a competing vision of Romanian national identity which did not include Orthodox Christianity. The reactions they received reveal the confusion and intense competition of interwar Romanian politics and society which influenced legislation leading to their harsh repression in the 1940s. |
| Supervisor | Iordachi, Constantin; Naumescu, Vlad |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/ploscariu_iemima.pdf |
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