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In 2001 it won a landmark legal victory against Following the government creation of Greater Romania after the Republic of Moldova at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights. TraditionallyFirst World War, Orthodox Christians in Moldova had been became part of the Church of Romania, but due to . Following Stalin's annexation of the country in 1944, the church there was again brought under the authority of the [[Church of Russia]]. As suchFollowing the fall of communism, Moldova's government had been refusing refused to recognize allow the Romanian church's to exercise any authority in Moldova, attempting to force the . The Bessarabian metropolis was created by the Romanian Patriarchate to cater for those clergy and people wanting to submit return part of Moldova to the Moscow PatriarchateRomanian rule. With the legal European Court ruling in of 2001, however, the Metropolis of Bessarabia was declared to be a part of the Church of Romaniaand permitted to operate in Moldova. 2003 figures show the Metropolis of Bessarabia has 84 parishes in Moldova while the autonomous [[Moldovan Orthodox Church]] has 1080 parishes. [http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/24423.htm]
Ukrainian * Romanian Orthodox Vicariate Diocese in RomaniaHungary (Guila)
*[http://roboam.com/identitate/boscorodirea.htm Boscorodirea] (in Romanian)
link
[[Image:Romanian_hieromonk.jpg|350px|thumb|A Romanian [[hieromonk]]]]
{{church|
name= Patriarchate of Romania[[Image:BOR CoA.png|270px|center|Church of Romania]]|founder= [[Apostle Andrew]]|
independence= 1865 |
recognition= 1885 by [[Church of Constantinople|Constantinople]] |
primate=[[Teoctist Daniel (ArapasuCiobotea) of Romania|Patriarch TeoctistPatr. Daniel]]|
hq=Bucharest, Romania|
territory=Romania, Moldova|possessions= United States, Canada, Western Europe|
language=Romanian|
music=[[Byzantine Chant]] / , Choral|calendar=[[Revised Julian Calendar|Revised Julian]], [[Julian Calendar|Julian]] (in Moldova)|population=18,817,975 [http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-bodypg-us.aspx?eccpageID=19&IndexView=toc]|
website=[http://www.patriarhia.ro/ Church of Romania]
}}
In the Romanian language it is most often known as '''Ortodoxie''', but is also sometimes known as '''Dreapta credinţă''' ("right/correct belief"—compare to Greek ''ορθοδοξια'', "straight/correct belief"). Orthodox believers are also known as '''ortodocşi''', '''dreptcredincioşi''' or '''dreptmăritori creştini'''.
The current [[primate ]] is His Beatitude [[Teoctist Daniel (ArapasuCiobotea) of Romania|Teoctist Daniel (ArapaşuCiobotea)]], Archbishop of Bucharest, Metropolitan of Ungro-Vlachia, and Patriarch of All Romania, ''[[Locum Tenens]]'' of [[Caesarea ]] in Cappadocia.
==History==
Most historians, however, hold that Christianity was brought to Romania by the occupying Romans. The Roman province had traces of all imperial religions, including Mithraism, but Christianity, a ''religio illicita'', existed among some of the Romans.
The Roman Empire soon found it was too costly to maintain a permanent garrison north of the lower Danube. As a whole, from 106 AD a permanent military and administrative Roman presence was registered only until 276 AD. (In comparison, Britain was militarily occupied by Romans for more than six centuries—and English is certainly not a Romance language, while the Church of England had no Archbishop before the times of Pope St. [[Gregory the Dialogist|Gregory the Great]].) Clearly, Dacians must have been favored linguistically and religiously by some unique ethnological features, so that after only 169 years of an anemic military occupation they emerged as a major Romance people, strongly represented religiously at the first [[Ecumenical Councils]], as the [[Ante-Nicene ]] Fathers duly recorded.
When the Romanians formed as a people, it is quite clear that they already had the Christian faith, as proved by tradition, as well as by some interesting archeological and linguistic evidence. Basic terms of Christianity are of Latin origin: such as ''church'' (''biserică'' from ''basilica''), ''God'' (''Dumnezeu'' from ''Domine Deus''), ''Pascha'' (''Paşti'' from ''Paschae''), ''Pagan'' (''Păgân'' from ''Paganus''), ''Angel'' (''Înger'' from ''Angelus''). Some of them (especially ''Biserică'') are unique to Orthodoxy as it is found in Romania.
However, important Romanian language translations certainly circulated, including the ''Codicele Voroneţean'' (the Codex of Voroneţ). The Bucharest Bible (''Biblia de la Bucureşti'') was the first complete Romanian translation of the [[Holy Scripture|Bible]] in the late 17th century. It was published in 1688 during the reign of Şerban Cantacuzino in Wallachia and is considered a mature and highly developed work.
Its cultural import is not unlike that of the [[Authorized Version|King James Version]] for the English language. This could not have been achieved without much previous (and perhaps as yet unknown) anonymous translation work. For this, a wealth of Byzantine manuscripts, brought north of the Danube in the "Byzance after Byzance" movement described by famous historian Nicolae Iorga is an outstanding proof.
After this time, the importance of Church Slavonic and Greek in the Church of Romania began to fade. 1736 was the year when the last Slavonic liturgy was published in Wallachia, but only in 1863 did Romanian become officially the only language of the Romanian church.
====The Church in Moldova====
Romanians in the Republic of Moldova (a region also formerly known as "Moldavia") belonging to the Metropolis of Bessarabia, having resisted Russification for 192 years (after the annexation of Bessarabia by the Russian Empire in 1812), are improbably said to currently number about 2 million. The Metropolis of Bessarabia is part of the Romanian patriarchate. In 2001 at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, the Metropolis won a landmark legal victory against the government of the Republic of Moldova for its official recognition in that country.
===Unique features===
The Romanian Orthodox Church is the only one of the only three [[autocephaly|autocephalous]] or [[autonomy|autonomous]] Orthodox churches using a Romance language as a principal liturgical language. The autocephalous [[Church of Russia]] also uses Romanian as a principal liturgical language in its autonomous [[Moldovan Orthodox Church]]. The autonomous Metropolis of Bessarabia also uses Romanian as its principal language. Various jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church in France and other European countries also use different romance languages as their principal liturgical language.
Byzantine religious records also mention a unique form of [[bishop|bishopric]] in the region—namely the ''[[chorepiscopos|chorepiscopate]]'' or ''countryside episcopacy''—as contrasted with the better-known religious centers in large cities. This office can be compared to the abbot-bishops of Ireland, who united the functions of countryside [[abbot]] with that of [[diocese|diocesan]] [[bishop]] in another country that did not emphasize an urban episcopate, at least for a time.
==Organization==
There are five six [[metropolis|metropolia]] and ten [[archdiocese]]s in Romania, and more than twelve thousand containing 14,035[[priest]]s and [[deacon]]s. Almost 400 631 [[monasticism|monasteries]] exist inside the country for some 3500 monks 8,059 [[monk]]s and 5000 nuns[[nun]]s. Three diasporan metropolia and two diasporan dioceses function outside Romania proper. As of 2004, there are, inside Romania, fifteen theological universities where more than ten thousand 10,898 students (some of them from Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Serbia) currently study for a doctoral degree. More than 1415,500 116 churches exist in Romania for the Orthodox faithful; under Communism these churches began to be referred to as ''lăcaşe de cult'', the generic name for a building in which religious activities were held. As of 2002, almost 1,000 1000 of these were either in the process of being built or rebuilt.[[http://www.patriarhia.ro/Site/Stiri/2006/074.html]]
==Famous theologians==
[[Image:Dumitru_Staniloae.jpg|thumb|right|200px|[[Dumitru Staniloae|Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae]]]]
Father [[Dumitru Staniloae|Dumitru Stăniloae]] (1903-1993) was one of the greatest Orthodox theologians of the 20th century. His ''magnum opus'', aside from his ''Duhovnicesc'' ("deepest spiritual"), is the comprehensive collection, compiled over 45 years, known as the ''Romanian [[Philokalia]]''.
==List of Patriarchs==
* [[Iustinian (Marina) of Romania|Iustinian]] (1948-1977)
* [[Iustin (Moisescu) of Romania|Iustin]] (1977-1986)
* [[Teoctist (Arapasu) of Romania|Teoctist]] (1986-2007)* [[Daniel (Ciobotea) of Romania|Daniel]] (2007-)
==Structure of the Patriarchate==
* Diocese of Covasna and Harghita
Metropolitan See of Cluj [From 1st of January 2006 / Elevated from Metropolitan See of Ardeal ], Alba, Crişana and Maramureş
* Archdiocese of Vad, Feleac, and Cluj
* Archdiocese of Alba Iulia
* Archdiocese of Craiova
* Diocese of Râmnic
* Diocese of Severin and Strehaia
Metropolitan See of Banat
* Diocese of Arad, Ienopole, and Hălmagiu
* Diocese of Caransebeş
Autonomous Metropolitan See of Bessarabia
Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan See for Germany and Central Europe
[[Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Western and Southern Europe|Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan See for Western and Southern Europe]]
[[Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese in America and Canada]]
Romanian Orthodox Diocese in Hungaryof Dacia Felix (Serbia)
[[Romanian Orthodox Diocese in Yugoslaviaof Australia and New Zealand]]
==Romanian Saints==
* [[Sava the Goth]]
* [[Stephen the Great]]
* [[List of Romanian Saints]]
==Churches and Monasteries==
==External links==
*[http://www.patriarhia.ro/ The Romanian Patriarchate] (official site)
*[http://www.crestinism-ortodox.ro/html_en/index.html Biserica Ortodoxa Romana] (in Romanian and English)
*[http://www.biserica.org/Publicatii/2003/NoX/13_index.html Portal Ortodox Romanesc] (in Romanian)
*[http://www.geocities.com/pr_razvan_ionescu/index_i.htm On Science and Faith: Romanian Orthodox Reflections] (in Romanian, French, and English)
*[http://www.ortho-logia.com/ OrthoLogia]: Jurnal de apologetica Ortodoxa
* [http://www.cnewa.org/ecc-bodypg-us.aspx?eccpageID=19&IndexView=toc Eastern Christian Churches: The Orthodox Church of Romania] by Ronald Roberson, a Roman Catholic priest and scholar
*[[:Wikipedia:Romanian Orthodox Church|"Romanian Orthodox Church" at Wikipedia]]
[[Category:Featured Articles]]
[[Category:Jurisdictions|Romania]]
[[es:Iglesia Ortodoxa de Rumania]]
[[fr:Église de Roumanie]]
[[ro:Biserica Ortodoxă Română]]
