Romanian court finds Orthodox patriarch guilty of collaboration with Communist regime

October 24, 2012

Romania’s top court has upheld the conviction of the country’s Orthodox Patriarch Pimen on charges of having served as a secret-service informant during the Communist era.

Patriarch Pimen, who is 83, does not face any criminal penalty for the conviction. But the court’s ruling—upholding a finding that the Orthodox leader had reported on clerics in Romania and in the US during the 1970s—strikes a blow to the prestige of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and reinforces widespread suspicions that the Orthodox hierarchy was heavily involved in collaboration with the Communist regime.

 

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Further information:

• High court: archbishop collaborated with secret police during Romania’s communist era (AP)