This church was built as a Greek-Catholic church in my husband's mother's village. It was built before the fall of Romania to communism. When the communists came to power, the church was given to the Orthodox Church, the state religion. Now, with 'freedom' in Romania, it is still an Orthodox Church and any villagers who want to worship at a Catholic church have to travel a few towns away.
Religious freedom (any freedom actually) is easy to take away and very difficult to regain. "God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan." — Thomas Jefferson
It's too bad that most Americans have forgotten that their freedom came at a great price. Maybe the reason that we have to fight even harder now to have religious freedom here in America, for those who care at all, is to remember and be thankful once again.
ReplyDeleteThe front part of the building reminds me of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church I visited in Kotor, Montenegro 2 years ago.
ReplyDeleteTit for tat unfortunately given what happened in places like Halych under the Poles. (And, presumably, Transylvania under the Habsburgs.)
ReplyDeleteTit for tat unfortunately given what happened in western Ukraine/Belarus under the Poles. (And, presumably, in Transylvania under the Habsburgs.)
ReplyDeleteWhere in Romania is your husbands family from? I spent some time in Hunedoara County and found it to be a beautiful, deeply spiritual place.
ReplyDeleteHe is from the county of Maramures (NW Romania)
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