The Orthodox Churches and Democratization in Romania and Bulgaria

Abstract

On 1 January 2007, two of Eastern Europe’s predominantly Orthodox countries, Romania and Bulgaria, officially became EU members. This brought to three the number of predominantly Orthodox EU member states, with Greece having been one since 1981. To be accepted in the union, a country must meet several pre-accession criteria that indicate its commitment to become a Western-type liberal democracy, to demonstrate profound respect for human rights, and to join the capitalist economic union. As in 1989, when Romania and Bulgaria were the last former Soviet satellites to shed their communist regimes, again in 2007 they were the last ones of the group to enter the EU, three years after the Central European and Baltic states joined, because of their difficulties in meeting the accession criteria. Both countries had to harmonize their legislation with the acquis communautaire and to revisit much of their political, economic, and civic culture in order to bring them in line with those of the democracies they sought to become by joining the EU club. A factor that was not part of the negotiation process in view of EU accession is religion. Each EU member has the freedom to manage its Church-state relations in its own way. This chapter looks at how the dominant Orthodox Churches of Romania and Bulgaria performed during the process of democratization leading up to their countries’ admission into the EU.