A Comparative Analysis of the Law Regulating Religions of 1928 and Decree 177 of the 4th of August 1948

Abstract

Decree 177 of the 4th of August 1948 was the law that represented the foundation of the legislation which regulated the activity of religions and cults in Romania throughout the communist period. Due to this, Decree 177 is always mentioned in every analysis of the relationship between church and state in communist Romania. Unfortunately, no serious analysis of the text of the decree has been written until now. Many authors simply enumerated the stipulations of the text or focused on irrelevant aspects of the decree. It should be emphasized that the new Romanian legislation regarding religions and cults did not emulate the Soviet legislation, but rather it reinterpreted the older Romanian legislation from the Interwar Period. This can be proven by closely analyzing the text of Decree 177 and comparing it to the text of the 1928 Law which regulated cults and religions. By doing this, we can easily see how the communist authorities reinterpreted the "bourgeois" legislation by seeing the relationship between church and state in a new light, but, at the same time, giving the appearance of continuing the same legislation.