The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Holocaust

Ion Popa's book makes a welcome contribution to the debate on the Holocaust in Romania by focusing on the largest religious confession, the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Popa's study is a first substantial and therefore crucial contribution to an important facet of the Holocaust in Romania. He uses solid and broad basis of pirmary and secondary sources and careful annotations.

The Romanian Orthodox Church and the Holocaust is an important book. Its value is found in the fact that it exposes the extent to which the thread of continuity that runs through Romanian Christian nationalist discourse from the 1930s and 1940s, through the communist period, all the way to the present, is sustained by a systematic and organised process of forgetting. It also demonstrates how carefully orchestrated silence and selective remembering of the national past are instrumental in sustaining antisemitic ideas and attitudes in contemporary eastern European society.

The present book is an important addition to the study of the Holocaust in Romania and also fills a major gap in scholarship on the Romanian Orthodox Church, the country's largest religious denomination.

Popa has brought to light an impressive volume of archival data unavailable to researchers and the general public until recently.

This study presents a wealth of interesting material and the verve and consistency with which the argument is presented makes for a convincing and readable account. As the first exploration of its kind on this politically, socially, and culturally relevant and historically significant subject for an English-speaking readership, it is unquestionably an important contribution to scholarly literature.