The more than 40 years of communist rule that Romania endured were far from constituting a single, unified historical era. During that time, a period such as the years 1948–1953 – rightly defined as a ‘Valley of Terror’, when people could end up in prison even for telling a joke – was followed, after Stalin’s death, by a so-called ‘thaw’, when Radu Gyr and Petre Țuțea were released from prison, only to be re-imprisoned a few years later. Consequently, in 1955, Patriarch Justinian and the Synod of our Church took advantage of that period of relative relaxation by canonising the first seven Romanian saints during grand ceremonies that lasted for nearly a month (October) both in Bucharest, where over 1,500 priests, monks and nuns processed in liturgical vestments through the centre of the capital, from the Patriarchal Cathedral to the Church of ‘Saint George the New’, as well as throughout the entire canonical territory of the Romanian Orthodox Church. On that occasion, the following came to share with us the spiritual joy of the aforementioned canonisations and the 70th anniversary of the autocephaly of the Romanian Orthodox Church: high-ranking hierarchs of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and of several Sister Churches. In issue 11–12/1955 of the journal The Romanian Orthodox Church, illustrated with numerous and telling images that would be well worth reprinting in facsimile, it is stated that Romania had at that time 12,000 priests and around 7,000 monks and nuns, with 500 nuns and sisters at Văratec alone.
Another decade of liberalisation (linked to de-Russification and an opening up to the West), initiated by Gheorghiu-Dej in 1962–1963, reached its peak in 1968, only to be brought to an end by the so-called ‘Theses’ of July 1971.
In May 1968, General Charles de Gaulle, President of France, paid a four-day visit to our country, which, four months later, on the night of 20–21 August, alongside Soviet troops and those of the other Warsaw Pact states, in the invasion of Czechoslovakia. On Thursday, 22 August, a plenary session of the Grand National Assembly was held, during which Metropolitan Iustin Moisescu of Moldova and Suceava offered a prayer to God. In an ‘Appeal by the Religious Denominations’, published in the newspapers the following day, including Scânteia, as well as in Metropolitan Iustin’s address, God was mentioned five times; an unprecedented occurrence.
In the autumn of that same year, the anthology Modern Romanian Poetry was published in a print run of one hundred thousand copies (as stated in the technical details), in two volumes, from the ‘Biblioteca pentru toți’ collection, edited by Nicolae Manolescu, which included Radu Gyr, Nichifor Crainic, Horia Stamatu and Ștefan Baciu (the latter two living abroad). This anthology, which I also bought, had almost sold out when it was withdrawn from the market, as Eugen Jebeleanu had gone to see Ceaușescu in person, complaining that ‘there was room in its pages for the Legionary poets, but not for the Communist ones’ (that is, for himself and Mihai Beniuc).
In October 1968, as an eleventh-year pupil, I was already in the habit of popping into bookshops, particularly the one on the ground floor of my block of flats – a state-run bookshop like all the others at the time. I was greatly surprised to see the Bible on display. It was a Synodal Bible, printed with the blessing of Patriarch Justinian and accompanied by his foreword. The Bible cost 90 lei, so without a moment’s hesitation I took the 100-lei note I had in my pocket and bought it. That very evening, I happened to open it at Ecclesiastes and was spellbound by the poetry and wisdom of that chapter, which I have since reread countless times. One evening in the mid-1980s, in the ‘Adam’ block on the eastern edge of Cișmigiu Park, I listened as Father Anania recounted the story of the publication of that Synodal Bible, the first since the establishment of the communist regime.
Until 1963, Patriarch Justinian had been unable to travel to a non-communist country. It was then that he was permitted to take part in the celebrations marking the millennium of Mount Athos. The great linguist from Freiburg, Paul Miron, met him there. At one point, the Patriarch showed him the cufflinks on his wrist, saying: “Look, Professor, I received these cufflinks as a gift from Nae Ionescu, who visited me several times in Vâlcea’.”
In 1966, Patriarch Justinian paid a visit to England, where he was received by Queen Elizabeth II, who had heard of a religious revival in communist Romania. The Queen brought along one of her own interpreters, leaving the one who had come from Bucharest in the antechamber, and at the end of the meeting she told her guest that she had prepared a gift for him: a brand-new Rolls-Royce. Patriarch Justinian thanked her, adding, however, that in 1968 he would mark two decades as Patriarch and that he was saddened that during that time he had not managed to publish an edition of the Holy Scriptures. Communist officials told him that the only obstacle was a shortage of paper… So he suggested to Queen Elizabeth that she convert his gift into a quantity of paper for Bibles; enough for around one hundred to two hundred thousand copies.
Regarding the receipt of the paper, via a British Bible society, we have the testimony of a great theologian – Father Ion Bria – former editor of the Patriarchate’s Publishing House between 1966 and 1968, who was involved both in correspondence with paper suppliers and in the printing and distribution of the 1968 Synodal Bible. I quote from his memoir, The Second Baptism, beginning with this clarification: “It was agreed that the version by Gala Galaction would be taken as the reference text for the Old Testament, and that of Vasile Radu, the 1952 edition, for the New Testament.”
“My task,” continues Father Ion Bria, “was to translate the correspondence between the Patriarchate and the USB, and to receive the USB delegation, if necessary, at various stages of the Bible’s printing and distribution. In fact, from the moment printing began, the editors were present at the printing works day and night, one after the other. For Patriarch Justinian, the printing represented a major political success for the Church, particularly as he had secured approval for an increased print run on the pretext that a number of Bibles would be sent to Romanian Orthodox Christians abroad (Bessarabia, Bukovina, the USA). The distribution of the Bible was handled by the Patriarchate’s Printing House (Fr Sabin Verzan), which dispatched ten copies to each parish in the country (ten thousand parishes) using its own lorry. Once this process was complete, the delegate from the USB (the Bible Society, ed.) visited the country, touring parishes, meeting with the faithful, and visiting seminaries and monasteries, to verify the tangible reality of the Bible’s distribution. I witnessed, together with Father Gagiu, this USB inspection in Romania, which the Patriarch had agreed to. I saw the new Bible on the priest’s desk in the parish house, on the lecterns in the churches, and in the homes of the faithful…”1
According to Father Bria’s estimates, with the aforementioned supplements, the print run of the 1968 Synodal Bible reached two hundred thousand copies, a figure also put forward by Metropolitan Bartolomeu Anania in a discussion more than three decades ago.
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See Rev. Prof. Dr Ion Bria, The Second Baptism, Reîntregirea Publishing House, Alba Iulia, 2005, pp. 121–122.