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Rumania: Equality with Reservations
- Abstract
My Interview with Father Constantin Burducea Minister of Religion, was very gratifying.
He looked most venerable, a proper shepherd of the varied Rumanian cults, in his orthodox black silk soutane buttoned up at the throat like a Russsian blouse. His dignity was lightened at precisely the correct degree by careful smiles and a mouthful of good teeth.
He confirmed what the Grand Rabbi of Rumania had already told me: that Judaism enjoyed absolute equality with many other faiths. Father Burducea was proud his ministry was the first in the cabinet to begin implementing the Moscow agreement. A Congress of the Cults had been convened to draw up a law which would legitimatize by decree freedom of religion existing in fact since Rumania turned against the Germans. “My government made racial discrimination and incitement of religious hatred punishable by three months to three years in prison. I have ordered the clergy to fight every sign of anti-Semitism. For new democratic Rumania, anti-Semitism means fascism.”
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