The Archbishop Major of Kiev and Galizia and head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, His Beatitude Lubomyr (Husar), visited Oradea Mare in Romania on 19-20 November, the guest of the local bishop of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church Virgil Bercea. An historic event was at the basis of this visit: the representatives of the Orthodox Church in fact restored to the Romanian Greek-Catholics of the town the church that had belonged to them until the suppression of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church. After the Second World War, says a press release, “in Romania, as in Ukraine, the Communist Party committed unexampled barbarities to suppress the Greek-Catholic Church. In that period all the churches owned by the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church were transferred to the Romanian Orthodox Church, the only one tolerated by the regime. After the fall of the Ceausescu regime, a period of revival of the Greek-Catholic Church began, but it suffered from a lack of churches, which the Orthodox Church showed little inclination to return. This was the most serious problem”. The restitution of the church of Oradea Mare thus represents “a sign of goodwill that encourages us to believe in the re-establishment of justice”. “I don’t know exactly what was it that prompted the Orthodox bishop and his auxiliaries to take the decision to restore this church, – said Husar but undoubtedly this gesture will improve relations between Orthodox and Greek-Catholics in Romania”.
