THE NATIONALITIES PROBLEM IN TRANSYLVANIA 1867-1940

Although freedom of worship was guaranteed in the decisions of Alba Iulia, the minority treaty of December 19, 1919, the Romanian constitution, as well as in the law on religion, measures taken by various Romanian authorities trampled this freedom underfoot, and gave rise to a multitude of struggles on the part of the Hungarian churches. In early times the excesses were understandable, given the suspicions entertained by the Romanian authorities and their unbridled pleasure at victory, leading them to disregard the prescriptions on freedom of religion. Arrests, torture, imprisonments and expulsions of Hungarian priests were the order of the day. The members of English and American Protestant missions noted with horror the insecurity

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affecting Hungarian church-life. According to the report of the Committee:

the Romanian government regards the Protestant churches as centers of Hungarian national existence, hence these are monitored closely and, if possible, prevented from functioning at all. As we have seen, this was enough to convince us that they feel it is necessary to debilitate these institutions in order to Romanianize the Hungarian people more effectively, which seems to be their objective. ²³

Indeed, the persecution of the priests assumed enormous proportions in some places. Very often the Hungarian priests were imprisoned at the drop of a hat, and then released without any investigation or interrogation. The priests of Martinis and Sinpaul [Homorodszentpal] were subjected to this treatment. In 1919 the Reformed and Unitarian ministers at Abrud [Abrudbanya], were arrested because they failed to have the bells tolled to celebrate the entry of Romanian troops into Budapest. Bartok, the Unitarian minister at Pietroasa [Csegez] was arrested because he did not greet the Romanian gendarme. The Unitarian ministers Orban and Kiss, were interned at Fagaras for a period of four months because they attempted to set up a denominational school in their community. The Unitarian minister at Maiad [Nyomat], one Kalman Peto, was escorted to Tirgu Mures and locked into the mortuary for four days; then he was transferred to Cluj and mugged on the way. Four weeks later, thanks to the intervention of one of his fellow ministers who bribed the authorities, he managed to get the investigation against him started. While he was being held, the gendarmes promised his wife at home that if they got aid they would release her husband. Thus they managed to extort 1,600 lei. Later he was released, only to be arrested again two weeks later and kept under police surveillance for a long time.

By 1921, 28 of the ministers of the Transylvanian Reformed District had been arrested, albeit only one was sentenced to a month in jail by the courts; the others, all innocent, remained in jail for years. The rapporteur of the Unitarian Church, Dr. Gabor Kolto, was arrested on February 21, 1921, and kept in jail for six months. When his case was brought to court, he was found entirely innocent and released. Lorinc Galffy, a Unitarian professor of theology, was arrested by the state security forces because of an innocent letter he received from clergyman Hankinson, and held in jail for six weeks. He was cruelly beaten several times during his detention. The Unitarian professor at Cristuru

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Secuiesc, Dr. Ferenc Borbely, was arrested and punished with almost one year of detention, because of a composition written by one of his students. The abbot at Cluj, Dr. Jozsef Hirschler, and Leonard P. Trefan, the district head of the Franciscan Order, were imprisoned in the fort of Cluj for weeks without cause. Janos Soproni, an ordained professor of Alba Iulia, was arrested by the Romanian military detachment of the Teius [Tovis] station and bodily maimed by them. Neither he, nor his superiors in the hierarchy ever received any kind of compensation for this misdeed. The Hungarian Roman Catholic canons at Alba Iulia were followed by Romanian detectives on their walk, who then entered into the garden of the seminary to check them for their papers. When the provost objected to this procedure, he was summoned to the police station. ²⁴

The American committee that visited Romania in the summer of 1924 recorded serious complaints in its English-language report. According to this report, Miklos Volloncs, a Reformed minister of Moacsa [Maksa], was dragged away from the midst of Hungarian youths on their way to a theatrical presentation and "was inhumanly tortured at the barracks of the gendarmarie to the point where he was bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth. The gendarmes were never punished." Mihaly Medgyaszay, a Reformed clergyman from Cernatu de Sus [Felsocsernaton], was persecuted and harassed in the most abominable manner over three years. He was forbidden to hold Bible association meetings or study groups unless police personnel were present. Even in church he was not allowed to preach unless a police officer was present on duty. When he requested that this order be stated in writing, it was refused. On December 23, 1923, he was dragged to the community house, where he was ruthlessly assaulted by the gendarme and the sheriff to the point where his body became considerably swollen in several places. Five days later the beatings were repeated. This second assault was so serious that only four days later was he able to get up and visit a doctor, and have photographs taken of the damage. He was so closely guarded by the Romanian gendarmes, however, that only much later was he able to file his report of the incident. His indignant followers turned to the prefect, requesting that the sheriff be punished. The prefect agreed only on condition that the diocese release Medgyaszay from his assignment. The people rejected this condition, whereupon the prefect forced the presbyters to resign. At the same time the prefect lodged two gendarmes in Medgyaszay's residence to have him watched and under house arrest at his own expense. Soon thereafter Medgyaszay was arrested, thrown in jail, tortured, then released; but the harassment

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continued. Since the charges placed against him proved unfounded, the authorities were obliged to release him, but made it impossible for him to continue to function at Cernatu de Sus. Finally he was expelled from Romania. Medgyaszay settled in Budapest where he tried to eke out a living in spite of hands mutilated in the course of the tortures. ²⁵

The persecution and physical harm to clergymen diminished in subsequent years and eventually became rather the exception. But offenses against freedom of worship became al the more frequent.

Respect for freedom of worship became the hallmark of every modern constitutional country in the 19th century. As mentioned, the Romanians under Hungarian rule had no complaints about any offense against this freedom during the period of the Compromise. Unfortunately, the Hungarians under Romanian rule had plenty of occasions to complain about offenses against their freedom during the entire period of Greater Romania. At the beginning, freedom of worship was curtailed mainly in the schools. In very many places the school authorities seemed particularly determined to force Hungarian Christian children to attend the Orthodox mass or the Uniate service. The teacher of the Romanian state school at Lisnau forced the children belonging to the Reformed church to show up at the Orthodox mass. The same happened to the Reformed children at Biusa [Boshaza] on January 24, 1925. ²⁶ Similar incidents occurred in 1926 and 1927. The American Committee on the Rights of Religious Minorities visiting Romania in 1927 once again noted that freedom of worship was not observed. The government, reported the committee, has restricted the autonomy of the churches. It exercises strict control over church services. One member of the Committee noticed a gendarme with fixed bayonet in one Hungarian church. Children of minority groups belonging to a different religion were sent to attend the Orthodox service. Members of Western Christian churches were forced to contribute to the construction expense of Orthodox churches. Their possessions had been confiscated, even some of their churches have been taken over. The Committee, having listed the incidents, came to the conclusion that:

the aggressive Romanianization of the minorities and the

destruction of their centuries old schools and churches are facts, and if the Romanian state should proceed along the same road it will lose the trust of even those who have been its friends. ²⁷

This warning of the Committee was to no avail, the Romanian authorities continued their high-handed activities. Reports from the

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churches continue to mention large numbers of incidents curtailing freedom of religion. These incidents became particularly common after 1933, primarily in the purely Hungarian Szekely region. We need to take a closer look at this policy of the Romanian authorities because of the peculiar causes and consequences of the persecution of the churches in the Szekely region.

After 1930 the Romanian government and authorities began to Romanianize the Hungarians of the Szekely land on the basis of an elaborate plan. Some Romanian scholars began to opine that many of the Szekelys were of Romanian descent. At the beginning they estimated the number of Romanians who had become Szekely at only a few tens of thousands, but eventually this number began to grow and a few years later reached a stage where all Szekelys were declared of Romanian origin. This was the theory that served as justification for undertaking the Romanianization movement in the Szekely area with all means at the government's disposal.

The most significant Romanian cultural association, the Astra, organized a cultural general assembly at Sibiu in 1930; it was at this assembly that the schedule of the Romanianization program was set. Bogdan Duica, a professor at the Romanian University of Glui, argued that:

today we must undertake a more aggressive national policy in Transylvania than even ten years ago. Now we must not merely defend ourselves, we must advance as well.... Our task is to carry our national language, culture and spirit to the furthest corners of our country. ²⁸

It became obvious from other declarations with a similar tenor that the Hungarians of the Szekely area could expect the worst. The process of Romanianization got under way already the following year, although collaboration between all agencies of the government was not realized

until 1934. From that time the freedom of worship of the Hungarian '

churches of the Szekely region was annihilated. In addition to the public schools teaching in Romanian, the task of Romanianization was entrusted by the authorities to the churches founded, or soon to be founded, in the Szekely region. The faithful of these churches were mainly Romanian civil servants, teachers, gendarmes, and notaries resettled in the area. From 1934 we witness the compulsory conversion of the masses of Szekelys to the Romanian national religions, promoted with the cooperation of all authorities.

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The crudest instances of forced conversion occurred in the so-called "Forest Region." The victims came from the ranks of the Unitarian and Reformed churches. But there were many victims of this policy in other regions as well due to the policy its advocates termed "turning back into Romanians". In Ciuc county, the Catholics were subjected to similar treatment.

The first to be affected were the faithful of the Unitarian church in the "Forest Region." The Romanian authorities intervened in 1934 in the villages along the Homorod [Homorod]. The ministers desperately called upon the leadership of the church for help, but the complaints remained entirely without effect. The leaders of the Unitarian church could not have known that the conversion work in the Szekely region was undertaken as the cooperative venture of five Romanian ministries. Hence every call fell on deaf ears. There remained nothing to do but, in addition to the complaints filed with the ministry, to protest in forceful tones at Cluj meeting of the council of the church. "We are protesting, on the basis of numerous complaints," we read in the minutes, "against the authorities worrying our Unitarian faithful and interrupting the practice of our religion on the grounds of name analysis, or any other excuse." ²⁹

The spring of 1935 signaled the beginning of the fiercest struggles. At that time Dr. Macedon Cionca, the Romanian sheriff of Ocland [Okland], summoned the officials of Batanii Mici, Batanii Mari, Herculian [Magyarhermany], and Biborteni [Bibarefalva] for March 12. Most of these officials were already Romanian who had been transferred there precisely for the sake of "re-Romanization." District judge Cionca passionately called upon the officials to reconvert the "Hungarianized" Romanians, and later, addressed the Romanian officials in other areas in the same tone.

After these instructions were issued, a most interesting activity, even from a historical point of view, got under way. On March 14, Ilie Moisescu, the Romanian notary of Herculian, summoned several members of the Reformed parish to the community house and made them sign a text in Romanian. The faithful did not understand the text but preferred to go along with the insistent demand of the notary. The statement was a declaration of conversion, the content of which was communicated to the Reformed minister Adam Rozsonday on May 8. It was from this declaration that Rozsonday found out that sixteen of his parishioners had converted to the Romanian Orthodox religion. The witnesses to the declaration were Borcoman, the secretary to the notariat, and public schoolteachers, Aurelian Savulescu and Aurelian Gandea. When Rozsonday asked the parishioners who figured in the

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declaration what had taken place, the latter asserted that the aforementioned witnesses were not even present at the community house when they signed the document. The faithful provided a written statement to this effect. ³⁰

Similar "conversions" took place in Martinis, Biborteni, Meresti, Virghis, Kbatanii Mici, Filia, and Bradnt. Ioan Puscasiu, the Romania notary at Martinis, and the teacher, Grigor Alexandru met and, on the advice of the Uniate priest, decided that many Hungarian families were of Romanian origin. Among others the Csala, Molnar, Fodor, Jakab families, some of whom had received their title of nobility back in the 17th century, were declared to be of Romanian origin. The male members of these families were summoned to the community house where an attempt was made to persuade them to convert to the Romanian church. Persuasion did not work.

The notary resorted to more aggressive methods, but they did not frighten easily, not even when the enthusiastic representative of the state pointed a revolver at one of them in desperation. The first unsuccessful attempt was followed by softening the ground. In fact, they did manage to convert a few farmers by withholding the permit to thrash the grain, and others with the threat of withdrawing their trade license. At Meresti, the Unitarian faithful were forced to convert by fines, repeated week in and week out; some among them were sentenced to pay 2,000 lei in fines on various grounds. Others were taken to the gendarme station and beaten unconscious. These violent measures gradually shook the Szekelys' determination, especially since the complaints of the churches went unheeded.

The clergymen in the parishes and dioceses under attack banded together to decide on a common defensive strategy. First of all they informed the faithful about the illegality of forced conversions and about the legal means at their disposal for reconverting. One of these means was that since the local notary refused to accept the statement of reconversion, they traveled to the seat of the district and made a declaration in front of the public notary there that they had been converted back to their church. Then the gendarme sergeant in the villages began to threaten the ministers themselves. Rozsonday was repeatedly threatened by the gendarme commander of Batanii Mici and by Nicolae Munteanu, the district sergeant of Ocland; he was forbidden to instruct faithful regarding the laws on religion and the provisions governing conversions. Similar threats were directed at the Unitarian minister of Meresti, Domonkos Simen, and of Virghis, Istvan Dobay. Both were harassed in every possible way, punished, fined and soon tried on the charge of agitation against the state. It goes without

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saying that, as soon as a denunciation was received, the Romanian Ministry of Religious Affairs deprived all these ministers of their Congrua because of their "anti-state and irredentist attitude."

The results obtained in the first few years were the conversion of a few thousand souls. According to the statistics compiled by the Reformed Church District of Transylvania, 12,139 members of the Reformed church had converted between 1933 and 1935, of whom 532 joined the Orthodox, and 535 the Uniate Romanian Churches. Among these were forced converts in the Forest Region. At the general assembly of the church district held at Cluj, on November 23 and 24, 1935, there were strong protests against conversion into the Romanian churches.

The general assembly of our church district, informed by repeated reports filed by the district of the Forest Region and its council, is astounded and pained to learn about the forced conversions which have been disturbing the church district for sometime, and affecting the spiritual welfare of the people of the entire Szekely region, who cling to their ancestral faith, and continue to do so. Moreover, the general assembly of the church district deplores the fact that the freedom of religion embedded in the constitution of the country is seriously infringed upon when subordinate officials of the government intervene in issues regarding the free exercise of religious rights.

By pointing out that the constitution of the Romanian state and the law on religion based on this constitution provided complete freedom to every citizen as regards religious convictions, the assembly of the church district protests with all its might against the state intervening, through administrative or other powers, against the free exercise of religion.

By unanimous decision it requests the Ministry of Religious Affairs to urgently attend to the impartial examination already proposed upon the intervention of the chief ecclesiastic authority.

Our general assembly expresses its hope that the government will provide complete rectification in this matter which is observed by the public opinion of the Reformed all across the world in the interest of the country. ³¹

The Unitarian Church tried yet another means of defending itself. In August 1935, it invited two foreign guests - Alfred Hall, a British Unitarian Minister from Sheffield and Joseph Steiskal, the Moravian

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bishop of the Czech National Church - to visit the areas most affected by the forced conversions. "This was needed," we read in the report:

because the provincial officials, gendarmes, and state teachers come up with fresh demands each time insisting that our people deny our ancestral Unitarian faith and its ethnic character and become Uniates, or else be subjected to inhuman persecution, tortures, and damages.... We recall the persecution of the Christians in ancient times, and we feel impressed when we think of those simple rural men and women who tolerated the compulsion, the persecution, the interruption of their work with heroic determination. The good Szekelys viewed the foreigners as their redeemers and were pleased if they could approach them with their plaintive cries at least under the cloak of darkness.

Unfortunately, for the time being even the visits of the representatives of the British and Czech churches were to no avail. The aggression continued. At the meeting of the Unitarian council at Cluj in December 193S, the chief caretaker of the church pointed out in his opening speech that they would call a second meeting that year specifically for the purpose of protesting against forced conversion. They called the meeting:

to defend the life force of our religion and church. We yearn to strengthen our faithful in our powerful struggles. Our weighty complaints concern the stamping out of weak forces. Today we complain not just of the attack on our church, but against our religion. ³²

The presiding council of the Reformed Church District reported the violence in the Forest Region in three instances during 1935 to the Minister of Religious Affairs (under numbers 3621/1935,5018/1935, and 9468, 11.011/1935), as well as to the Minister of the Interior. The Unitarian Church likewise requested the examination of the offenses and the prevention of further violence through repeated and urgent complaints. But in 1935 the Ministry only mentioned the possibility of an impartial examination, offering no remedy. Finally, in 1936, the Minister of Religious Affairs responded to the many memoranda filed by the Unitarian Church, stating that according to the declaration of the sheriff Cionca "he has never resorted to force to effect conversions, nor is it within his power to resort to force of pressure." The local investigation promised in response to the memoranda from the

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Presiding Council of the Reformed church did not take place until the general assembly of 1937.

In the meantime, further aggressions were committed. The most flagrant among these was the case of Sandor Bogdan, a member of the Reformed church at Herculian. Bogdan, was transferred into the Uniate church already on March 14, 1935, by the above-mentioned Moisescu, the Romanian notary of Herculian. Upon receiving enlightenment from Adam Rozsonday, the Reformed minister, Bogdan decided, however, that he would use every means to reconvert to his beloved Reformed Church. On June 4, 1935 he visited a public notary and made a specific statement indicating his reconversion to the Reformed Church. According to the law on religion this was a perfectly legal procedure hence Bogdan continued to consider himself a member of the Reformed Church. A daughter was born to him on December 20, 1936. On the 22nd he declared to the official in charge of the registry, in a legal manner, that the religion of his newborn was Reformed. The Romanian official, Ioan Pop became most indignant upon hearing this, cursed Bogdan, and arbitrarily registered his daughter as of the Orthodox religion. Bogdan immediately went to the Reformed minister requesting him to take steps to save the religion of his daughter. The minister reported the incident, according to regulations, to the deacon, who forwarded it to the Presiding Council of the church district. The Presiding Council placed a complaint with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. It seems the Ministry confidentially mentioned to Cionca that this case was obviously in conflict with all the laws and could be used against the Romanian authorities. On April 10, 1937, Cionca summoned Bogdan to the office of the sheriff of Ocland. When Bogdan showed up, trembling to hear what Cionca had to say, the dark complexioned, swarthy Romanian sheriff demanded wrathfully that he sign a document, according to which, he voluntarily joined the Orthodox Church and he himself had registered his daughter as Orthodox. Bogdan refused to do so. Then Cionca attacked him, beating and kicking him with all his strength. The terrible beating lasted three whole hours, until noon. The moans of the unfortunate man could be heard far away and, at noon, someone knocked on the door. Cionca then ceased to beat Bogdan and sent him into the corridor. Bogdan was relieved and escaped from the corridor of the sheriffs office. He managed to get home with his face swollen and streaming with blood and severe contusions on his body, through detours, avoiding the villages. He informed Rozsonday who in turn went to the deacon. The following day the deacon left for Odorheiu in order to attempt to protect Bogdan from further tortures, with the help of the local chairman of the

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Hungarian Party. He was too late, however, for Bogdan had been arrested by the gendarmes of Batanii Mici and taken to the station in the evening of the 11th. Under the methods used at the station, Bogdan, who feared for his life, finally gave up and signed the declaration which Cionca had demanded he sign on the 10th. At Odorheiu the deacon sought out the Romanian county chief who, however, was not at home. Later, accompanied by Dr. Gabor Jodal, the chair of the Hungarian Party in the county of Odorheiu, he once again called upon the prefect. The latter knew by then what the problem was and produced the "voluntary" statement signed by Bogdan. The report of the Presiding Council of the Reformed District added the following comment:

After the beatings he was subjected to Sandor Bogdan desisted from continuing his action for the correction of the entry in the registry. The unusual means of persuasion intimidated the faithful of Herculian who had been converted by force, and they are now reluctant to request any corrections in the registries. ³³

Since the steps taken officially led to no result, the church district of the county of Odorheiu tried to prevent further conversions among its intimidated members. By decision 66/1935, the assembly of the district declared that those who gave in to intimidation and abandon their persecuted church could not participate in any manifestation of their church's religious life and could not count on services by the church. Ministers and cantors may not cater to the spiritual needs of the renegades for any reason: there could be no tolling of bells in the churches at funerals or any other occasion, for themselves or their relatives, and they could not be buried in the graveyard of the church. This meaningful decision had considerable impact and in some cases prompted those inclined to give in to the possible advantages and intimidations, to hesitate. But the Romanian authorities were prepared for such a predicament and as soon as this decision was proclaimed in the churches of the district, they initiated prosecution against every one of the ministers. The persecuted ministers, however, accepted the trials and tribulations that lasted for years, but would not give in. This internal resistance of the church district under attack eventually bore fruit. It prevented mass conversions of the faithful, all the more so as the Romanian courts absolved the deacon and the accused ministers, on the grounds that their stand, according to which they were acting in defense of the religious convictions of their faithful and not in order to

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agitate against the state, was justified. Rozsonday was absolved on all three charges against him on June 3, 1937; the charges of agitation directed against Simen and other ministers were likewise dismissed. Unfortunately, the acquittal of the ministers did not prevent further aggressions which provoked astounding scenes in several places. On one occasion they wanted to bury a converted person in the Reformed cemetery at Biborteni. When the Reformed minister refused to toll the bells, as per instruction of the assembly of the church district, the relatives of the deceased broke into the locked church with the help of the Romanian authorities and, ascending the steeple, pulled the bell ropes. ³⁴ In other villages, the authorities attempted to convert the Reformed and Unitarian faithful by means of beatings and special punishment.

The faithful of the Catholic Church were subjected to the same acts of aggression as the Reformed and the Unitarians in all counties of the Szekely region. In 1936 the notary at Lueta [Lovete] inscribed forty Catholic families in to the Uniate Church. In the county of Ciuc this was a regular occurrence. The investigation which the authorities were forced to undertake led to no results, even though the losses affecting the Roman Catholic Church were greater than those suffered by the Reformed or Unitarian churches. In this case the Romanian Uniate priests tried to make the conversion of the Szekelys easier, arguing that by transferring from the Roman Catholic to the Uniate Church, they were changing not their faith but only their rite, for the creed of the two churches was almost identical

Other aspects of religious repression in the Szekely region after 1934 were forcing the Szekely children to attend mass or service at the Romanian churches and prohibiting all kinds of religious or church gatherings. The complaints to this effect become more and more common after 1934, and eventually indicate the general repression applied to the entire Szekely region. In most places the teachers in the public schools forced the Reformed children to attend the Orthodox and Uniate churches. In other places they would not allow the children to attend service at the Reformed Church. This was the case in Bozies, Vulcan, Tamasfalau, Ghindari, and Petrila [Petrilla-Lonyatelep]. In the latter two places they resorted to various devices to keep the children from participating in the Reformed service. At Capeni [Kopec] the gendarme sergeant dissolved the meeting of the presbiter, escorted its members to the station, took their deposition and insulted them. At Aita Seaca [Szarazajta] the community notary would allow the presbiter assembly only before seven in the evening. The superintendency of schools in the county of Odorhei closed down all Sunday schools. The

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gendarme sergeant prevented Istvan Kali, the minister at Pasareni, from carrying out his work and handled him roughly. As the Presiding Council noted in its report:

the internal missionary work has become almost completely paralyzed. There was scarcely a parish where the ladies' or men's association could function regularly. The authorities rendered the evangelizing work even more difficult by their contradictory regulations.

The bishopric requested the protection of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in vain; most of the time it did not even receive a reply to its requests. The steps taken by the authorities to curtail freedom of conscience and of worship went unchallenged, as did the hindering of the administration of confirmation, the preventing of participation at church services, and the forcing of children to attend religious instruction in Romanian. The local gendarme sergeant at Acataria [Akosfalva] could not put up with the sight of the Hungarian inscription on the church and had the phrase ',peace be unto you," removed with an ax. The leaders of the church continued their requests unflaggingly, however hopeless they may have seemed. They pointed out the impossible situation into which they got as a result of the incredible oppression by the Romanian authorities. As noted in the report of the Presiding Council:

there is scarcely an agency which does not usurp the right to decide in matters of church and religion. The police issue rules regarding religious gatherings, the principals of state schools arrange the nationality and religion of the pupils arbitrarily, and the gendarmes lay down the basic principles of religious instruction. Under such circumstances the building work of the clergymen and the administration of the church run into insurmountable obstacles. ³⁵

In 1938 Romania experienced an internal crisis. The diplomatic situation, which did not favor Romania at the time, only made the crisis worse. King Carol II hoped to lead the country out of the crisis by dissolving all political parties and inaugurating a royal autocracy. For reasons of foreign policy, this autocracy set up an office of governorship for the minorities, and its authority was defined in the decisions of the ministerial council of August l, 1938. The government termed these decisions "minorities statutes," although they merely amounted to the

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collective enumeration of the principles of former laws and directives. The immeasurable deterioration in the situation of the minorities was clearly evident in the fact that these minorities statutes, in addition to reiterating measures introduced earlier, contained various promises in response to the complaints that had been aired.

The leaders of the Hungarian churches received the statutes optimistically, expecting, in particular, an improvement in the conditions of the Szekely region; but they soon had to sadly realize their mistake. As a result of the new administrative setup in the country, royal intendants were appointed to head the new provinces; these evinced various attitudes in dealing with the problems. In some provinces the local authorities resorted to even more arbitrary measures because the new provincial administration was not yet fully in operation; they were entrusted mostly to military personnel, and the latter tended to resort to the command spirit on minority issues.

One of the weightiest issues was the one regarding the long delayed solution of the problem of religious gatherings. For years the church leaders had appealed to the ministries not to hamper the meetings of the presbyters, of the women's associations, and other internal missions. Finally, as a result of the numerous memoranda, it seemed that the Minister of the Interior came up with a favorable response. The Presiding Council of the Transylvanian Reformed Church District informed the public that the Minister had authorized religious gathering by his directives of March 24 and May 26, 1938. The Presiding Council communicated the news of these directives to the royal intendants of Mures, Somes, and Bucegi, and these in turn acknowledged the communication. Thereupon the Presiding Council published a copy of the directive in the church periodical Reformatus Szemle for the benefit of the provincial ministers.

No sooner was this directive of the Minister of the Interior published than the deacons and ministers began to complain desperately once again. The Minister at Chichis reported that he had shown the directive to the gendarmes and launched the missionary work; but two weeks later the gendarmes of Ozun prohibited all further work along those lines with the explanation that only the army corps headquarters could authorize such meetings. They took a deposition regarding the meeting in progress and forwarded it to the Romanian military courts.

Janos Gyorke, the deacon of the diocese of Bekecsalja reported on the fate of the directive. Seeking a guarantee for his evangelical work he addressed written memoranda to the prefects of Mures and Odorhei counties requesting permission for such work throughout the church district. His reference to the directive of the Minister of the Interior

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was fruitless, for the prefect of Mures did not reply to his request at all whereas the prefect of Odorheiu, referring to an order issued by the headquarters of the 5th Army Corps, rejected the deacon's request.

According to the report from the deacon's office in the church district of Gurghiu [Gorgeny], the Romanian authorities in that region insisted the directive of the Minister applied only to the presbiter meetings and the Te Deums.

On the basis of such complaints, the Presiding Council requested the offices of the province of Mures to consider the directive of Ministry of the Interior regarding meetings and gatherings. This request went unheeded, while serious incidents cropped up in ever-increasing numbers. The commander of the gendarmes at Sinmiclaus [Bethlenszentmiklos] crudely berated the church representative who handed him the official notice announcing a meeting of the presbyters and, he banned the meeting. The district notary of Sincai [Mezosamsod] banned all missionary meetings, referring to rules issued by the prefect. The head office of the province informed the Presiding Council that it had instructed the county offices to observe the directive of the Minister in a special circular. But either this did not actually happen, or the circular was ill-intentioned because, as the deacon of the church district of Mures reported, the directive of the Minister regarding meetings was not observed by anyone in the county. The office of the province of Mures gave an evasive reply to the request of the Presiding Council and everything remained as heretofore. ³⁶

The situation in the county of Odorheiu was similar. According to a report from the office of the deacon of the county, the gendarme sergeant, referring to an order from the headquarters of the 5th Army Corps, banned all religious meetings. The ministers at Matiseni and Porumbenii Mici reported the same situation. On the advice of the gendarmarie, the minister of Atid [Eted] requested permission for holding presbiter meetings and missionary gatherings from the county head office, but the latter refused to grant permission. Then the Presiding Council intervened, requesting the head office of the province to observe the directive issued by the Ministry of the Interior. The provincial office instructed the prefect's office to carry out the circular it had issued. All this did not help. Then the Presiding Council asked the office of the province to send a copy of the directive of the Ministry of the Interior; the latter refused.

Finally the church leadership succeeded, at the cost of several months of appealing and insisting, in procuring a copy of the aforementioned circular of the province of Mures as well as a copy of the directive of the Ministry of Religious Affairs regarding religious

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meetings. Then the head office of the province of Mures instructed the prefect of the county of Odorheiu, by order dated December 29, 1938, to go by the directive of the Ministry of the Interior in the future. According to this directive, church meetings and religious gatherings could be held freely, without prior authorization. Only the time of the gatherings must be communicated to the law enforcement offices for purposes of acknowledgment.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs sent a letter to the bishopric informing the latter about the measures it had taken to authorize religious gatherings. The Ministry of the Interior, on its part, called up the chief inspectorate of the gendarmes, as well as the executive direction of the police, telling them to take action to abide by the oft mentioned directive of the Ministry. These law enforcement agencies were instructed not to subject religious gatherings to prior censorship or to the requirement of obtaining permission, but to be satisfied with a prior notification. In a memorandum dated November 15, 1938 it also requested the Ministry of National Defense to issue similar instructions to the pertinent military authorities.

Nevertheless, goodwill was lacking somewhere along the line because even after these repeated requests and instructions, religious gatherings were still not allowed. The Presiding Council, reporting on the above developments, concluded in a resigned tone: "There is no end to the complaints. Meetings and gatherings are still restricted. The gendarmes who show up at the meetings of presbyters object to the agendas which, according to them, are not of a religious nature."

In addition to preventing presbiter and missionary meetings, the forcing of children to attend Romanian churches was became a major grievance. Instruction for the sacrament of confirmation was forbidden at Vintul de Sus. At Sincai, the public school teacher escorted the youngsters of Reformed religion to the Uniate church. At Aita Medie, Barolt, Talisoara, Biborteni, and Mureni, the children were taken either to the Orthodox or to the Uniate churches and forced to perform rituals in conflict with their faith. At Gornesti, in order to continuously disturb the service, a physician's residence and clinic was constructed in front of the main entrance to the church, while the garage was converted into a stable. At Bicalatu, the Hungarian pupils at the state school were forbidden to pray in their mother tongue. At Cuiesd, the public school teacher punished those children who wanted to attend Sunday school. At Singeorgiu de Padure and Sinpetru, the gendarmes banned instruction for the sacrament of confirmation. The teacher at the public school of Kispulyon ordered the Reformed youngsters to attend the Uniate Church on Romanian national holidays and made them sing

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parts of the Mass. In the diocese of Tirnava the commanders in charge of pre-military instruction also forced the youngsters of Reformed religion to carry out the rituals of churches alien to them. The head office of the province, in its response to this complaint, asserted that according to the investigation, the Reformed youth participated in these rituals voluntarily. ³⁷

The most serious acts of aggression during these two years occurred once again in the Forest Region, within the realm of the already mentioned Cionca. Here the commanders of the gendarmes banned the presbiter meetings at Mureni and Biborteni. Soon all church meetings were banned in every parish and the situation which evolved, as the deacon reported, rendered ecclesiastic administration impossible.

Having prepared an exhaustive report of the incidents, the Presiding Council requested the leadership of the Mures head office to intervene. Most of the complaints mentioned sheriff Cionca specifically. Thereupon the head office of the province of Mures did order an investigation of the complaints and appointed Cionca himself to head the investigation. There could be no doubt as to the final outcome. Cionca summoned the ministers of Filia, Bradut, Batanii Mici, Herculian, and Biborteni and made them sign a declaration according to which Romanian authorities did not interfere with the christenings, weddings and funerals.

In its reply the Presiding Council pointed out that the sheriff, in order to obfuscate the tenor of his acts of aggression, attempted to sidetrack the issue of religious gatherings, inasmuch as no complaints had been raised regarding the christenings, weddings, or funerals. This argument did not help at all, since evidently the acts committed by Cionca were covered up by the head office of the province; hence the situation in the Forest Region remained the same.

The office of deacon reported, under number 826/1938 to the Presiding Council, that the directives brought to the attention of all heads of provinces had no effect. The authorities continued to make it impossible to hold church meetings and religious gatherings in the dioceses of Odorheiu county. What's more, the gendarmes exceeded their earlier zeal and now considered that even baptisms, marriages and funerals constituted religious gatherings and were to be announced at their headquarters. Sheriff Cionca declared that in his opinion the oft mentioned directive from the Ministry of the Interior did not apply to meetings of the Reformed Church.

The third type of acts of aggression constituted an even more serious infraction against the freedom of worship, and it occurred with increasing frequency after 1935 in several counties. The Romanian courts preferred to schedule the sessions in suits on the greatest

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religious holidays of the Western rite churches to which the Hungarians belonged. The parties to the suit were to appear on Good Friday, or Easter Monday, since the Romanian authorities, according to their Orthodox calendar, considered only Easter Sunday as a holy day of obligation and did not observe the holidays listed in the Western rites. At Cristura Secuiese, the sheriff, Bordasiu would not allow the Hungarian Catholic merchants to close their shops on Easter Monday. In 1938 the population of the community of Batanii Mici was commandeered to perform public works, whereas the faithful in Herculian and Biborteni were led to do paving on the first, second or third day of Ascension. The Presiding Council of the Reformed Church District forwarded the complaint to the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Upon orders from the Ministry, the provincial head office of Mures did launch an investigation, but entrusted it, according to the procedures already discussed, to the very agency against whom the grievance was filed. Of course, the results of the investigation did not bear out the grievance, arguing that the faithful had performed public works voluntarily. The church district was not satisfied with the results and once again sent a resolution to the Presiding Council, requesting that a second investigation be undertaken. The head office, however, carried out the investigation according to the selfsame procedure. The hearing was scheduled for January 12, 1939, but the complaining minister and the deacon were so informed only late in the evening of January 11. Therefore they could not show up at the hearing which was held at some distance from their community, and the investigation was carried out in their absence. Macedon Cionca once again reported that, according to the results of the investigation, the faithful had undertaken the works voluntarily. Thereupon the Presiding Council sent the original declaration of the residents to the head office of province: the declaration made it clear that they had been forced to do public works on the holiday of Ascension. The head office once again sided with sheriff Cionca, responding that it upheld its earlier statements in their entirety, that the denunciation was groundless and the correspondence a waste of time.

Judging from the cases mentioned the Hungarian churches encountered growing difficulties, often amidst insurmountable obstacles, after 1934. The clergy tried to continue its work with perfectly legal means. But there came a time when this work not only became impossible, but the attempts to continue often jeopardized even the lives of the clergy and of the faithful. In 1936, in the community of Harau, unknown culprits broke the windows of the Reformed school, and the Romanian residents of the village molested those belonging to the

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Reformed religion. At Rdesti, between 11 and 12 on the night of December 1, 1936, five local Romanian youths penetrated into the courtyard of the house of the minister and tore down the fence, the door of the porch, the door of the kitchen, and the windows. At Miraslau, the Romanians from Aiud and Ceaca, led by the Uniate priests Aurelian Mesesan and Laurentiu Stancel, as well as the local sergeant of the gendarmes, broke the windows of the members of the Reformed Church. In 1939, in several communities, the Romanian population, in full view of the authorities, drove out the Reformed minister and severely harmed the members of his church. The Romanian population stormed the apartment of the Reformed minister at Koloskara, destroyed his windows, furniture, and other valuables. The minister and his family were only to escape and save their lives thanks to an acquaintance. ³⁸

In the serious predicament, after 1934 the Hungarian churches could carry out their calling only by means of the greatest determination and the self-sacrificing work of the clergymen. They were only able to overcome the obstacles placed in front of them by the Romanian authorities, by the inner strength derived from enhancing the spiritual life of their flock and finding comfort in the Scriptures. Fortunately, all the Hungarian churches had experienced a revival in the years following the signing of the Treaty of Trianon. They had lost their wealth, their outward prestige. Once a supportive and well-intentioned institution, the state in Greater Romania became indifferent at best, but more often antagonistic. Their members had also become impoverished as a result of the land reform and other economic measures. The churches could rely only on their living capital, that is the sacrifice of their members, the support of their pennies. This depended on the intensity of the faith of the faithful and their integration into the work of the church. The faithful could not be persuaded to sacrifice by rational arguments, by reason. There remained but one possibility: the most powerful source of strength of every church and religion from the beginning of times, the Scriptures. This power manifested itself in every church. The Reformed in the areas later attached to Romania had been advocates of a generally liberal and rational approach. The dominant concept in the Reformed Church was that Protestantism is tantamount to liberalism and democracy, hence its primary duty was to educate. But soon after 1918 the so-called dialectical theology represented by Karl Barth, which renewed Protestant theology in general, began to prevail. Under its impact, as well as the impact of the serious objective misfortunes, the Reformed Theological Institute of Cluj became entirely an adept of the dialectical tendency. The renewal which affected ecclesiastic life in its entirety originated from here. The

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church realized that its primary duty was the proclamation of the Eternal Word and the comforting of the Hungarian souls which had been thrust into immeasurable sadness and misery. The fortunate outcome of this realization was the organization of the various internal missions which attempted to involve every stratum of society, without regard to age or sex, in the comforting work of the church in ever increasing numbers. Thus the Reformed Church gradually became a popular evangelical church. The work of the Young Men's Christian Association began in 1919, as did the deacon's institute, new hymnbooks were issued, and the reform of the service was undertaken. At the same time the Parochial Library was reorganized, courses and evangelical conferences for ministers were organized, Sunday schools were refurbished. All kinds of Bible societies were created. The uniform direction for the many ramifications of this evangelical movement was the newly-organized Evangelical Committee which, in Transylvania, was called the Mission Council. These organizations functioned with speakers and traveling secretaries to ensure the uniform impact of the movement. Just before the Romanian authorities had banned the Evangelical works, according to the last data, dating from 1938, there were 419 Sunday schools and 369 groups carrying out YMCA work in the bishoprics of the Reformed Church. Moreover, several hundred men's, women's, and girls' societies involved all age sexes, and ranks of the faithful in the work of the Reformed Church. The proclamation of the Word, which took place under identical forms and in an identical spirit in all these societies, enabled the Hungarian faithful, persecuted and relegated into the background, to gain the extraordinary strength they needed to bear their burden and misery.

The inner life of the Roman Catholic and Unitarian Churches also experienced a roughly similar revival. Various evangelical and faith enhancing organizations were set up in these churches as well, and these obtained significant results. Flourishing social work was undertaken in the village and town assemblies of the Roman Catholics. The Szivgarda/Guard of the Heart/ and the Catholic League of Nations of Transylvania played an important role among the church organizations. The latter, a spearhead organization, was formed in 1926 and comprised five sections: Social, Faith, Youth, Village and Working Women sections. These sections took care of the cultural, religious, economic, and health education of the Hungarian Catholic women of Transylvania. Before the operation of these sections was halted by the state of emergency and the already described measures of the authorities there were 1,300 such associations comprising 80,000 members. ³⁹

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While the women were brought together in the above associations, the men belonged primarily to the League of Nations and Adolf Kolping associations, and the children to the Guard of the Heart. All these associations provided a most significant opportunity for the reinforcement of Catholic consciousness and the enhancement of their powers of resistance.

The internal transformation of the Unitarian church also entailed the organization of missionary activity, of Sunday services for children, and the formation of the Unitarian Women's Associations. The youth were enrolled in the sections of the Ferenc David Association. The association of women created day-care centers, kindergarten, and inaugurated courses in child care and home economics. Under the impact of these, religious consciousness grew considerably stronger.

The spirit of this smallest of the Hungarian churches adapted to that of the Reformed Church, and its faithful were encouraged by the same kind of evangelical activity.

The question remains, how could the impoverished churches and the even more impoverished flock organize such formations and afford social institutions? The willingness of those to sacrifice the faithful, whose faith and consciousness had grown, manifested itself in moving ways. They were able to collect enough to launch very many missionary projects, literally from pennies. The Protestants of Switzerland, of the United Kingdom, and the United States hurried to the assistance of the oppressed Protestants of Romania with touching readiness. The Roman Catholics also received financial assistance from their coreligionaires abroad. This aid was initiated by societies abroad and it was also these societies that secured the approval of the Romanian government. This approval was not always forthcoming. For instance, the Protestants of Switzerland organized a collection of used clothing for the benefit of Protestant clergymen. They were able to collect about two wagon-loads. Then the chief of the aid society in Switzerland called on the Romanian embassy in Geneva personally to request permission for the importation of the clothes, but the Romanian consul rejected the request saying that he was not a dealer in second-hand clothing, hence could do nothing in the matter. Therefore the Hungarian Protestant ministers never received the shipment of clothing, although the prestige of Romania was also damaged in the eyes of the Protestants of Switzerland.

After 1937, as we have noted, all missionary work became impossible, and prior permission had to be obtained from the gendarmes even for baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The faithful of the Hungarian churches and the pupils at schools were forced to attend Romanian church services. It seemed that all means of livelihood had

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ceased, yet services in Hungarian churches were still authorized, and this provided immeasurable spiritual encouragement to the faithful, which the Romanian authorities never even suspected. At times of total repression enormous spiritual comfort was derived from the phrase heard everyday in the course of the revitalized Reformed service: "God loved the world and sacrificed his only Son so that whomsoever believes in Him will not be lost but will secure life everlasting." And even the usual phase of the prayer now sounded so much more meaningful: "But deliver us from evil." The Reformed, Catholic, Unitarian, and Evangelical Hungarian believers did not have only evil Satan in mind, but also thought of the ill-will which placed them under such heavy national oppression. The Hungarian souls, excluded by external circumstances, retreated to the infinite fields of their inner spirit; in vain did the Romanian authorities persecute them, they could not reach the Hungarians in the realm of the mind, even though they tried everything in their power. After 1936 they prescribed even some of the expressions to be recited during the prayers on national holidays.

Until then the prayer for the ruler, in the Hungarian churches, was "We beg our Lord for our country's king." Onisifor Ghibu believed that on such occasions the Hungarians would secretly pray for the ruler of the Hungarian homeland. Under the impact of one of his articles the Ministry ordered that in the future the king should be mentioned by name: Carol II, the King of Romania. But this compulsion was to no avail in the world of the mind, as was the introduction ordered to the Romanian royal anthem; all this could not elicit the sincere love of the followers of the oppressed Hungarian churches towards that Romanian state which had forgotten the principle of freedom of worship to such an extent.

THE NATIONALITIES PROBLEM IN TRANSYLVANIA 1867-1940