The Church of Romania was raised to the rank of Patriarchy in
1925. The majority of Romanians in Romania by a very wide margin (about
20 million, or
86.7% of the population, according to the
2002 census data) belong to it.
In terms of population, the
Church of Romania is second in size only to the
Church of Russia.
The primate is His Beatitude Daniel (Ciobotea), Archbishop of Bucharest, Metropolitan of Ungro-Vlachia, and Patriarch of All Romania, Locum Tenens of Caesarea in Cappadocia.
Romanians in the Republic of Moldova (a region formerly known as "Moldavia") belonging to the
Metropolis of Bessarabia, having resisted Russification for
192 years (after the annexation of Bessarabia by the Russian Empire in
1812), are improbably said to currently number about
2 million.
The Metropolis of Bessarabia is part of the
Romanian patriarchate. In
2001 at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, the Metropolis won a landmark legal victory against the government of the Republic of Moldova for its official recognition in that country.
The Romanian Orthodox Church is organized as the
Romanian Patriarchate. The highest hierarchical, canonical and dogmatical authority of the Romanian Orthodox Church is the Holy Synod.
There are
six metropolia and
ten archdioceses in Romania, containing
14,035 priests and deacons. Almost
631 monasteries exist inside the country for some
8,059 monks and nuns.
Three diasporan metropolia and two diasporan dioceses function outside Romania proper.
As of
2004, there are, inside Romania,
fifteen theological universities where more than
10,898 students (some of them from Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Serbia) currently study for a doctoral degree. More than
15,116 churches exist in Romania for the Orthodox faithful.
Following the creation of Greater Romania after the First World War, Orthodox Christians in Moldova became part of the
Church of Romania. Following Stalin's annexation of the country in
1944, the church there was again brought under the authority of the
Church of Russia.
Following the fall of communism, Moldova's government refused to allow the Romanian church to exercise any authority in Moldova.
The Bessarabian metropolis was created by the
Romanian Patriarchate to cater for those clergy and people wanting to return part of Moldova to Romanian rule.
With the European Court ruling of
2001, the
Metropolis of Bessarabia was declared to be a part of the
Church of Romania and permitted to operate in Moldova. 2003 figures show the
Metropolis of Bessarabia has
84 parishes in Moldova while the autonomous
Moldovan Orthodox Church has
1080 parishes.
