Miron Cristea

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Miron Elie Cristea
Miron Cristea attending a public event
Prime Minister of Romania
In office February 11, 1938 – March 6, 1939
Deputy	Armand Călinescu
Preceded by	Octavian Goga
Succeeded by	Armand Călinescu
Born	July 20, 1868 Oláh-Toplicza, Austria-Hungary
Died	March 6, 1939 Cannes, France
Nationality	Romanian
Political party	none
Profession	priest
Religion	Romanian Orthodox

Miron Cristea, (monastic name of Elie Cristea; July 20, 1868—March 6, 1939) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian cleric and politician. The first Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, he was Prime Minister of Romania for about a year (between February 11, 1938 and his death).

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Born in Topliţa to a peasant family^[1], he studied at the Saxon Gymnasium of Bistriţa (1879-1883), at the Greek-Catholic Lyceum of Năsăud (1883-1887), at the Orthodox Seminary of Sibiu (1897-1890), after which he became a teacher and principal at the Romanian Orthodox school of Orăştie (1890-1891).^[2]

Cristea then studied Philosophy at the University of Budapest (1891-1895), where he was awarded a doctorate in 1895 - with a dissertation about the works of Mihai Eminescu (given in Hungarian).^[2]

Returning to Transylvania, he was a secretary (between 1895 and 1902), then a counselor (1902-1909) at the Archbishopric of Sibiu. It was then that he was ordained deacon in 1900 and archdeacon in 1901. Cristea became a monk at the Hodoş Bodrog Monastery, Arad County in 1902, taking the monastic name of Miron. He climbed the monastery hierarchy, becoming an archmonk in 1903 and a protosingel in 1908.^[2] Miron Cristea was elected bishop of Caransebeş in 1910 and became an archbishop in 1919. ^[1]

During World War I, as Romania joined the war on the Allies' side, Cristea signed on September 1, 1916 a public letter to the parishioners printed at Oradea by the Orthodox Bishophric of Transylvania. The letter called to arms all believers against "Romania the new enemy which sinfully covets to ruin the borders, coming to conquer Transylvania".^[3]

Towards the end of World War I, on October 18, 1918, it was founded the Central National Romanian Council, an organization which fought for the union of Transylvania and Romania. On November 21, Cristea, as archbishop of Caransebeş joined the organization and recognized it as the only ruling body of the Romanian nation in Transylvania. On December 1, he was (with Vasile Goldiş, Iuliu Hossu, and Alexandru Vaida-Voevod) a member of Austro-Hungarian Romanian delegation that called for the unification of Romania and Transylvania. ^[4]

[edit] Patriarch of Romania

On December 31, 1919, he was chosen by the Great Electoral College to be the Metropolitan-Primate of Whole Romania and on November 1, 1925, after a Synod was held, he was named Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church.^[5]

Cristea introduced reforms such as the Gregorian calendar to the church, including the celebration of the Easter on the same date as the Roman Catholic church. This was opposed by various groups of Old calendarists, especially in Moldavia, where Metropolitan Guriaş of Bessarabia refused to accept the orders given by the Patriarchy. The Old Calendarists, lead by Glicherie Tănase seceded many parishes from the Orthodox Church and by 1936 they built more than 40 churches. However, after 1935, the Romanian government began to suppress any opposition to the Orthodox Church and the churches were razed and some of the activists the imprisoned, while others, like hieromonk Pambo, were killed.^[6]

In 1927, he was chosen by Ionel Brătianu to be one of the three regents of King Michael I of Romania, alongside Prince Nicholas of Romania and Gheorghe Buzdugan.^[7][8]

Cristea's involvement in politics was, however, controversial, being criticised by journalists at Epoca newspaper, who accused him of trying to play the role of Rasputin and being a member of the palace camarilla. This resulted in the issue being confiscated by the police and their offices being vandalized by hooligans, allegedly incited by the government.^[9]

Cristea strongly opposed the idea of a Concordat with the Vatican and the Romanian Orthodox Church issued a statement against it saying that "the treaty subordinates the interests of the country and the sovereignty of the state to a foreign power".^[10] The Romanian Senate ratified it anyway on May 26, 1929 and Cristea, as a member of the regency, was forced to sign it.^[1] This has led again to discussions about the incompatibility between his two posts and there were discussions on whether Cristea would have resigned rather than sign the Concordat.^[11]

A dispute arose with philosopher Nae Ionescu, after Ionescu attacked Cristea in newspaper articles following a dinner at Cristea during the Nativity Fast during which they were served turkey. As a response, Cristea requested the painter Belizarie to paint Ionescu's face on a devil in the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest's Apocalipse-themed mural.^[12]

In 1929, because of a serious illness (identified as leucocythemia by his medics), Cristea retired for several months to a country house in Dragoslavele, Muscel County, but despite the bleak predictions about his health state, he was soon able to return to Bucharest.^[13]

On July 6, 1930, Carol II returned to Romania to assume power. On July 7, Miron Cristea and Constantin Sărăţeanu resigned from the regency and the following day, the Parliament revoked the 1926 law which gave the throne to Mihai, Carol becoming King again.^[14]

[edit] Prime Minister of Romania

In a bid for political unity against the fascist movement known as the Iron Guard, which was gaining popularity, in 1938, Carol dismissed the government headed by Octavian Goga. The activity of the parliament and of all political parties was suspended and the country was to be governed by royal decree. Cristea was named Prime Minister on 11 February 1938 and the government included seven former prime-ministers and people from all major parties except for Codreanu's Iron Guard and Goga's Lăncieri, which had violently clashed.^[15] Time Magazine described him as a "puppet Premier" of Carol II,^[16] whereas historian Joseph Rothschild considered that it was Cristea's vice-prime-minister, Armand Călinescu, who held the power in the Cristea government.^[17]

In his inaugural speech, Cristea denounced political pluralism, arguing that "the monster with 29 electoral heads was destroyed" (referring to the 29 banned political parties) and claiming that the king shall bring salvation.^[18]

The new government announced a program which put restrictions on various freedoms, especially related to censorship and the introduction of authoritarian measures such as military rule (by declaring a state of siege, which allowed among other things, searches without warrant and the military appropriation of privately-held guns) and the death penalty, but it promised prosperity through some constitutional and social reforms, which were to include the "organized emigration of Jewish surplus population", that is, expulsion Jewish people who came to Romania during or after World War I. However, it eased the Jewish restrictions imposed by the Goga government.^[19][20]

The external politics of the Cristea government were based on seeking an alliance with the United Kingdom and France, away from the friendship with the Berlin-Rome Axis supported by the Goga government.^[20]

Among the policies Cristea introduced during his rule as Prime Minister was a crackdown on Protestants, by disallowing religious service to small congregations with less that 100 heads of families, basically banning the services in around 1500 small chapels belonging to various Christian denominations.^[16] Despite worldwide protests from the Baptists, the ban was only lifted after Cristea's death by his successor, the National Renaissance Front's Armand Călinescu.^[16]

On February 20, a new constitution was announced, which organized Romania as a "corporatist state" similar to the one of Fascist Italy, with a parliament made up of representatives of the guilds of farmers, workers and intellectuals.^[21]

Miron Cristea's government resigned on February 30 in order to form a new government on the same day. The new government banned all political parties, their activity being only suspended before that.^[22]

In March 1938, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, attacked in a letter the politicians who supported Carol II, including Prime Minister Cristea and members of his government. Codreanu was arrested for slander against Nicolae Iorga and killed "while attempting to escape".^[1]

By the end of 1938, Carol II introduced even more Fascist-inspired elements: for instance, on January 1, 1939, during the government's visit to the Royal Palace, they wore uniforms and when meeting Carol, Cristea and the ministers greeted him with the Fascist salute.^[23]

Another change in Cristea's government was on February 1, 1939, which gave extensive powers to Călinescu, who became virtually the head of the cabinet, while Cristea remained nominally the Prime Minister at the King's insistence.^[24]

[edit] Deteriorating health and death

His health deteriorated in January 1939, suffering from two heart attacks^[25], which prompted his doctors to recommend him to stay in a warmer place for a few months, in order to avoid the harsher Romanian winter. On February 24, 1939, Cristea arrived in Cannes, France, but contracted pneumonia while waiting for his niece in the Nice railway station. He stayed in Cannes for treatment, but died two weeks later, on March 6, of bronchopneumonia complicated by heart disease. ^[1]

His body was sent by train to Bucharest, the funeral train stopping in all stations in Romania to permit believers to pay their last respects and say prayers before the body. On March 7, a state of national mourning was ordered and all festivities were canceled.^[26] A week later, on March 14, funeral services were held in Bucharest,^[27] Cristea being buried in the Patriarchal Cathedral.^[5]

[edit] Political positions

Cristea's political positions were nationalistic, seeing for Romania external threats from both the east, in the form of communism and the Soviet Union and from the capitalist and modernist west.^[28]

As he became the head of the church in Greater Romania, a multiethnic and multireligious state, Cristea feared that the ethnic minorities, as well as Romanians belonging to non-Orthodox creeds such as the Greek-Catholicism and the Jews would challenge the privileged status which the Orthodox Church had in pre-WWI Romania.^[28]

Early during his tenure as Patriarch, Cristea supported tolerance towards the Jewish people. For instance, in 1928, he made an appeal towards the Romanian students to observe the Golden Rule and he expressed regrets for attacks and profanations of synagogues.^[1]

In the 1930s, as the Fascist Iron Guard rose in popularity, initially, Cristea's position towards them was of acceptance, especially since their program included loyalty to Orthodoxism. Many Orthodox priests were attracted by the movement and it was common that their banners were blessed in churches.^[28]

In 1937, Cristea realized that the Iron Guard was decreasing the loyalty of both the Orthodox Christians and the lower-ranked clergy to the church hierarchy and began to oppose the Guard, while adopting their anti-semitic and xenophobic rhetoric^[28]: he supported the revocation of the Romanian citizenship for Jewish people and their deportation, the Jews being in his opinion the major obstacle in "assuring preponderant rights to ethnic Romanians". ^[29]

On August 18, 1937, he issued a statement which called the Romanian nation "to fight the Jewish parasites"^[30] who spread "epidemics of corruption" throughout Romania and that the Romanians have a "a national and patriotic duty" to protect themselves against the Jews: ^[29]

"The duty of a Christian is to love himself first and to see that his needs are satisfied. Only then can he help his neighbor. . . . Why should we not get rid of these parasites [Jews] who suck Romanian Christian blood? It is logical and holy to react against them."^[31]

In 1938, during a meeting with Wilhelm Fabricius, the German ambassador, Cristea is reported to have praised the anti-semitic policy conducted by Nazi Germany and supporting such a policy in Romania,^[32] and the British Ambassador wrote in his report to London that "Nothing would induce him [i.e., Cristea] to talk about anything but the Jewish problem."^[29]

[edit] References