ISHWRA Seminar: An Army of Nuns: The Network of Greek Catholic Women Who Built the Underground Church in 1950s Romania

This paper explores the underground networks of women religious that developed after the enforced union of the Greek Catholic Church with the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1948. It is often the case that the history of the Church in East Central Europe during Communism is a narrative about men. A top down interpretation that is linked with hierarchies and power, the history of the secular and religious central administrations of State and Church is one that all too frequently ignores women. Research into institutional archives reveal a world dominated by men, structural hierarchies of power where women had marginal roles. However, the archive of the Secret Police preserves a crucial perspective, albeit distorted, of women religious. In the process of surveillance of Church leadership, the Secret Police uncovered the new roles that women had begun to assume in the daily life of the Church. This paper discusses these secret files, forming a picture of the lives of women religious as individuals struggling to subvert the Communist regime’s attempt to eliminate the Church by dismantling its male hierarchy. Significantly, following the release from prison of many of the Church’s male leadership, these women’s roles were subsequently marginalized.

Anca Sincan is a researcher at the Gheorghe Șincai Institute for Social Sciences and Humanities of the Romanian Academy in Tîrgu-Mureș, Romania.

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If you have any questions about the event, please contact cormac.s.begadon@durham.ac.uk. 

(Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary c.1948 used with the kind permission of the Council for the Study of Romanian Securitate Archives.)