The Eighth Tribe, 1979 (6. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1979-10-01 / 10. szám
tee of Polish-Hungarian-Czechoslovak medical experts asked permission to enter the country and examine the two families. Rumanian authorities denied the permission. The last report received by the Transylvanian World Federation in mid-September stated that Mr. Király, his wife and his children were taken to a hospital for treatment, location unknown. The Zolcsák family disappeared in the same time. We must seriously wonder: just how long will the world tolerate outrageous crimes of such proportions against humanity? PLAYRIGHT IONESCO CALLS FOR BOYCOTT The Carpathian Observer reports: Rumanian-born playwright Eugene Ionesco called on the world’9 artists and intellectuals to boycott Rumania in protest of that government’s treatment of minorities. “Communist Rumania is becoming the center of repression, hypocrisy and persecution in Europe”, Ionesco said in a statement on behalf of the Committee of Intellectuals for Rights in Europe (CIEL) of which he is the chairman. The well-known Rumanian playwright, living in Paris called on “all intellectuals, scientists, artists and creators to boycott Rumania’s official institutions, and not to visit this country as long as repression and the disappearances (of dissidents) continue.” We hope that the Academic Community of the United States will heed Ionesco’s appeal, and will stay away from the 1980 World Historical Congress planned in Bucharest, in spite of the red carpet treatment offered by the Ceausescu government. The year 1980 was declared by Mr. Ceausescu as the “two-thousand anniversary of Rumanian statehood between the Dnieper and the Tisza rivers.” Everybody knows that the forefathers of the Rumanians, the Vlachs, migrated from the Balkan peninsula into their present location during the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, and Rumania as such became an independent country only one-hundred years ago. This new Rumanian megalomania reminds us of the “Herrenrasse-theory” of Hitler, and seems to be the main source of Rumania’s ultra-chauvinistic treatment of the national minorities. The truth is that Hungarians and Germans established culture and civilization in Transylvania long before the first Vlach migrants appeared on the slopes of the Carpathians. The Byzantine Catholic Church In Rumania (Under the above title an outstanding article appeared in the UNIREA, publication of the Association of Rumanian Catholics in America as well as in the Byzantine Catholic World, in September 1979. The article was written by ION RATIU. Due to lack of space we are unable to print the entire article, nevertheless we are trying to convey the message concerning the plight of our Rumanian compatriots in Ceausescu-ridden Transylvania.) The Communist regime in Rumania, tolerating the Orthodox Church, has relentlessly persecuted and discriminated against the Eastern Rite Catholic Church for the last thirty years. To recall the facts briefly, on 6 June 1948, at his enthronement, the new, Communist-chosen Patriarch of the Rumanian Orthodox Church, the late Justinian Marina, made a bitter attack against the Pope and invited the “Uniates” to return to orthodoxy. Soon after, on 17 July, the Concordat was denounced, and a ruthless, brutal campaign followed. By the end of October 1948 the Uniates had “asked to be received into the welcoming arms of the Mother Church.” All six Uniate bishops and some 600 priests were under arrest. By decree no. 358 of 1 December 1948 the Rumanian Communist government formally recognized the return of the Uniates to orthodoxy and confiscated all their property: churches, schools, hospitals, and so on. The Uniate Church of almost two million people had ceased to exist. But not quite. To be sure, it has been a long time dying, for there is ample, incontrovertible evidence that the Uniate Church is still alive and real in the hearts of men in Rumania today. As the martyred Bishop loan Suciu, the apostolic administrator of the Church, prophesied in 1948 before he was tortured to death in prison: “If they take our churches, for a time we shall make — every one of us — a church in our own house and wait with confident hope for the delivery, which will come” (October 5, 1948, in his last pastoral letter). The Uniates, scattered around the globe, have Vasile Cristea, Titular Bishop of Lebedo, residing at the Vatican. He takes care of the Rumanian Catholic missions in Paris, Munich, Madrid and a number of other places. The 17 Uniate parishes in North America, however, belong administratively to eight different diocese. It was the 1978 convention of these Rumanian Catholics of America that gave us the opportunity to pray for our church and to protest against its continued suppression. The convention sent telegrams to Pope Paul “humbly imploring him to continue bis efforts for the restoration of the rights THE TRANSYLVANIAN QUARTERLY IV
