N ATIONAL I DENTITY AND C HURCH A RCHITECTURE IN G REATER R OMANIA

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CHAPTER 3 –CONSTRUCTING THE ROMANIAN CITY CENTER: THE

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1930, only 11% of the population was Orthodox, while Greek-Catholics represented 22%.²⁰⁶ However, as the Constitution stated, Orthodoxy was the dominant religion of the Romania and, since the second half of the 19^th century, nationalists strongly argued that it was also one of the elements that defined the best the Romanian character.²⁰⁷

In the case of Transylvania, the role of Orthodoxy was even more significant. In the absence of Romanian political elite until the 19^th century, the members of church hierarchy became also the natural leaders of Romanian local communities. As a group of Transylvanian politicians stated, “the Church was the shield that preserved along the centuries our language, traditions and land”²⁰⁸ Therefore, after the First World War, the construction of Orthodox churches in the new provinces was seen by the Romanian state as a means of visually

“conquering” the territory through the symbolic significance of the Romanian national style.²⁰⁹

As Romanian Orthodoxy originated in Byzantium, the models for the new cathedrals, chosen to become the symbols of the Romanian power in the Transylvanian city centers, were searched through a “pilgrimage to the medieval sources”.²¹⁰ The Byzantine Empire has been always perceived as a source of political and religious power in the Balkans, and Romania, just like Serbia or Bulgaria, proudly considered itself as one of its legitimate heirs. Moreover, the Byzantine prototype had also a very practical advantage for the architects: it offered

206 Recens mântul general al popula iei României 1930 [The General Census of the population of Romania1930], vol.II, Neam, limb matern , religie [Nationality, mother tongue, religion], (Bucuresti: 1930), XCIV.

207 Keith Hitchins, “Orthodoxism: Polemics Over Ethnicity and Religion in Interwar Romania”,in Ivo Banac and Katherine Verdery (ed.) National character and national ideology in the interwar Eastern Europe. (New Heaven: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, 1995).

208 Arhivele Mitropoliei Clujului, Fond II-23-920, Telegram addressed by the State Minister Petru Groza, Minister of Cults Octavian Goga and the president of the Unification Commission in Cluj, Theodor Mihaly to congratulate Nicolae Ivan on the occasion of his birthday.

209 The author discusses in a consistent chapter the evolution of the Romanian national style during the interwar period. See Carmen Popescu,Le style national roumain (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes; [Bucuresti]:

Simetria, 2004), 205-282.

210 Ioan Augustin,Power, play and national identity, 20.

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monumental scale models, which although missing in the medieval Romanian architecture, were necessary for the urban areas in which these Cathedrals were to be placed.²¹¹

Discussing the impressive church building activity in interwar Transylvania, Carmen Popescu stated that Orthodox “cathedrals”²¹² shared the hybrid function of mausoleums, being simultaneously religious places and commemorative monuments. Moreover, she

considers that through the visual language of architecture, the Romanian state aimed to emphasize the “re-conquest” of a symbolical territory for the Romanians, but also to counterbalance the “foreign”(i.e. Hungarian) appearance of Transylvanian cities.²¹³ Since Orthodoxy was considered to have played a major role in the history of Transylvanian Romanians when as one of the most visible symbols of their national identity, the construction of imposing cathedrals was the equivalent of the nationalization of the territory.²¹⁴ Furthermore, the architects that designed these cathedrals exploited the resources offered the Byzantine legacy, which translated Romanians’ attachment to the Eastern Christianity.²¹⁵ According to Augustin Ioan, the churches built during the interwar period in the new provinces carried strong political connotations. The style of these religious buildings aimed not only to define Romanianness, but also to promote a specific discourse on national identity in cities where the Romanian presence was weak. The issue of monumentality became of major importance for the architects, since these “Romanianizing” cathedrals were designed to map in a very visible manner the national territory.²¹⁶

Although I agree with the observations listed above, I argue that these authors failed to address one important aspect: the construction of these churches was not initiated by the state,

211 Ioan Augustin,Power, play and national identity, 20.

212 These churches were often perceived as cathedrals due to their monumental dimensions.

213 In this case, Carmen Popescu makes reference to the national Hungarian style of the new generation of architects leaded by Károly Kos. However, this statement is not applicable to the case of Cluj. As Gheorghe Vais demonstrated, the dominant architectural style chosen by the Hungarian state for the majority of the buildings constructed at the turn of the century was historicism. The group of architects led by Kos had a rather limited influence on the city’s landscape.

214 Carmen Popescu,Le style national roumain,211.

215 Carmen Popescu,Le style national roumain,255.

216 Augustin Ioan,Power, Play and National Identity , 23-24.

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but by local individuals or lobby groups. Even when these projects were state sponsored, the history of their construction is much more complex than a conscious building campaign coordinated from one center as Popescu and Ioan suggest. If the state provided the financial support for many of these projects, this was largely due to the pressures made by the local initiators on the central government.

Both the royal dynasty and the central government in Bucharest aspired to show their attachment to the “Romanian values” by associating their public image with the construction of specific religious edifices. The ceremonies organized at the consecration of the churches gathered large popular masses, offering useful opportunities for the official display of power.

On the other hand, local Romanian elites also aimed to establish a consistent presence in the city’s public life and to control the local institutional infrastructure. For them, the construction of a new church was a means for achieving these goals. However, the obvious ideological problem was the confessional divide between Orthodoxy and Greek-Catholicism. Could both these confessions be identified as Romanian? Or were the Romanian people Orthodox by definition? Before 1918, representatives of both confessions had been involved in Romanians’

efforts for emancipation. However, in the framework of Greater Romania, Transylvanian Orthodox leaders began to emphasize that all Romanians had “originally” belonged to one Church, i.e. Orthodoxy and suggested that Greek-Catholicism was a temporary schism that should be remedied in the new nation state. Besides language, Orthodox religion now became a point of historic unity among all Romanians living in Transylvania, Moldavia and Wallachia. The new historical narrative suggested that religious unity had anticipated political unity and that this religious unity was always revolving around Orthodoxy.²¹⁷

217 For a general overview on the discourse about Romanians’ unity, see Lucian Boia,Istorie i mit în con tiin a româneasc (History and Myth in the Romanian Consciousness)(Bucuresti: Humanitas, 2006), 214-250.

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3.2. Two “Romanian” Cathedrals in Cluj? Searching for Alternative