Lucian Turcescu | |
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| Born | 1966 (age 57–58) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto |
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| Discipline | Theology |
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Lucian Turcescu (born 1966) is a Romanian-born Canadian professor of theology at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in theology from the University of Toronto in 1999. Turcescu taught for six years at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, where he became an associate professor and chair of the Religious Studies Department. In 2005, he was recruited in the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University, where he later was promoted to Full Professor and served as Department Chair between 2011-2016.[ citation needed ]
Turcescu has done research, published, and taught in several areas, including religion and politics, early Christianity, and ecumenism. One of his main ideas is that there was no concept of person before the fourth century CE, when Christian theologians (such as the Cappadocian Fathers) had to clarify what exactly they meant by one God in three persons. [1] Another of his ideas is that modern theologians, such as the influential Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon, have not understood the fourth-century concept of person properly and instead applied to it modern existentialist and personalist readings (e.g., the difference between person and individual). [2] He is also a proponent of the idea that functional democracies do not necessarily require the separation between church and state. [3] Most of his research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
He authored or co-authored several dozen peer-reviewed articles which have been published in journals such as Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Europe-Asia Studies , East European Politics and Societies, Problems of Post-Communism, Religion, State and Society, Modern Theology, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and Vigiliae Christianae.
He organized international colloquia on "Religion and Politics in Eastern Europe" (Iaşi, Romania, 2005) Archived 2021-11-13 at the Wayback Machine and on "The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity" (Concordia University, 2006). He is Past President of the Canadian Society of Patristic Studies (2004–2008), and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies since 2004.
Turcescu served as a member of the board of directors, Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, and the corporation's combined program director (1999–2002).
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The Romanian Orthodox Church, or Patriarchate of Romania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Since 1925, the church's Primate has borne the title of Patriarch. Its jurisdiction covers the territories of Romania and Moldova, with additional dioceses for Romanians living in nearby Serbia and Hungary, as well as for diaspora communities in Central and Western Europe, North America and Oceania. It is the only autocephalous church within Eastern Orthodoxy to have a Romance language for liturgical use.
The Securitate was the popular term for the Departamentul Securității Statului, the secret police agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania. Previously, before the communist regime, Romanian secret police was called Siguranța Statului. It was founded on 30 August 1948, with help and direction from the Soviet MGB. Following the Romanian Revolution in 1989, the new authorities assigned the various intelligence tasks of the DSS to new institutions.
Dumitru Stăniloae was a Romanian Orthodox Christian priest, theologian and professor. He worked for over 45 years on a comprehensive Romanian translation of the Greek Philokalia, a collection of writings on prayer by the Church Fathers, together with the hieromonk, Arsenie Boca, who brought manuscripts from Mount Athos. His book, The Dogmatic Orthodox Theology (1978), made him one of the best-known Christian theologians of the second half of the 20th century. He also produced commentaries on earlier Christian thinkers, such as St Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Maximus the Confessor, and St Athanasius of Alexandria. He is also remembered as editor in chief of the regional orthodox newspaper Telegraful Român (1934–1945) where he imposed a nationalist and antisemitic editorial line.
Teoctist was the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1986 to 2007.
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Article 200 was a section of the Penal Code of Romania that criminalised homosexual relationships. It was introduced in 1968, under the communist regime, during the rule Nicolae Ceaușescu, and remained in force until it was repealed by the Năstase government on 22 June 2001. Under pressure from the Council of Europe, it had been amended on 14 November 1996, when homosexual sex in private between two consenting adults was decriminalised. However, the amended Article 200 continued to criminalise same-sex relationships if they were displayed publicly or caused a "public scandal". It also continued to ban the promotion of homosexual activities, as well as the formation of gay-centred organisations.
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Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa was a Romanian priest and dissident.
Bartolomeu Anania was a Romanian Orthodox bishop, translator, writer, and poet. He was the Metropolitan of Cluj, Alba, Crișana and Maramureș.
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Lavinia Stan is a professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Canada. She currently lives in Montreal.
The anti-religious campaign of communist Romania was initiated by the People's Republic of Romania and continued by the Socialist Republic of Romania, which under the doctrine of Marxist–Leninist atheism took a hostile stance against religion and set its sights on the ultimate goal of an atheistic society wherein religion would be recognized as the ideology of the bourgeoisie.
Alexandru Theodor Cisar was a Romanian cleric, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Iaşi and archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest. Born in Bucharest, he entered that city's seminary in 1892. Sent to Rome in 1899, he was ordained a priest in 1903 at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Upon his return to Romania, he was named secretary to Archbishop Joseph-Xavier Hornstein and dean of students at the seminary. After a short time as parish priest at the Bucharest Bărăția and at the Craiova parish, he was named head of a school in Bucharest in 1918. In 1920, he was consecrated bishop at Saint Joseph's Cathedral and was installed in Iaşi. He reopened the seminary there that had shut down due to World War I. In 1921, the parishes of Bessarabia, recently united with Romania, were incorporated into his diocese. Following the retirement of Archbishop Raymund Netzhammer in 1924, he was named Archbishop of Bucharest. He was also interim Apostolic Administrator of Iaşi until 1925, when Mihai Robu was named bishop. He remained in office until retiring in 1948 and being named titular bishop of Nicopolis. During 1949–1953, the new communist regime forced him to live at the Franciscan monastery in Orăştie. Twice, with the authorities' approval, he was able to go to Alba Iulia to ordain priests. He was allowed to return to Bucharest in late 1953. He died soon after, and was buried in the Catholic chapel at Bellu cemetery.
The Romanian Orthodox Church operated within Communist Romania between 1947 and 1989, the era during which Romania was a socialist state. The regime's relationship with the Orthodox Church was ambiguous during this period: while the government declared itself "atheist", it actively collaborated with the Church, and, during the Nicolae Ceaușescu era, the government used the Orthodox Church as part of his promotion of national identity.
The relationship between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Iron Guard was one of ambivalence. The Romanian Orthodox Church promoted its own version of nationalism which highlighted the role of Orthodoxy in preserving the Romanian identity. Starting with the 1920s, the Church became entangled with fascist politics and antisemitism. In this context, the Iron Guard, also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael, a fascist movement founded in 1927, became very influential with church grassroots. Numerous rank-and-file priests joined the Iron Guard ranks and actively supported its policies; so did a minority of influential high-ranking clergymen such as Nicolae Bălan or Vartolomeu Stănescu.
Irreligion in Romania is rare. Romania is one of the most religious countries in Europe, with 92% of people saying that they believe in God. Levels of Irreligion are much lower than in most other European countries and are among the lowest in the world. At the 2011 census, only 0.11% of the population declared itself atheist, up from the 2002 census, while 0.10% do not belong to any religion. While still one of the most religious countries in Europe, practicing, church and mass attendance is quite low, even compared to some less religious countries than Romania. It is mainly practiced by elderly people, mainly in rural areas, while in urban areas church attendance and practice is much lower. As of 2021, almost 85% are declared religious, of which about 73% are declared orthodox, 12% other religions, about 1% atheists or irreligious and about 14% declared nothing about religion.
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Freedom of religion in Romania refers to the extent to which people in Romania are freely able to practice their religious beliefs, taking into account both government policies and societal attitudes toward religious groups.
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