The aim of this interdisciplinary workshop will be to explore the varied ways in which actors in the communist-era religious underground were able to transcend, transgress and traverse borders and boundaries. The phenomenon of the religious underground is emerging as an important new area of research for historians and anthropologists of religion in Central and Eastern Europe (see Kapaló and Povedák 2022; Șincan and Biliuță 2022) inspired by the desire to gain a more nuanced understanding of the lived experience of communities during communism and how in turn this has shaped the contemporary religious field in the region This workshop will bring together scholars from Romania and Moldova as well as invited speakers from Ukraine and Hungary to explore the ways in which communities such as Greek Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Orthodox dissenters, engaged in practices that required them to creatively transcend or challenge multiple types of boundaries or restrictions, whether imposed by the state or their own hierarchies.

The themes that will be discussed will include the history and memory of religious travel across borders between Romania and other communist-bloc countries, inter-communal transmission of religious ideas and practices between underground communities, strategies for economic survival and the transgression of gender-based roles and duties amongst clandestine groups. In contrast to the attention that has been paid to the religious Cold War as a geopolitical, East-West phenomenon, the questions addressed by this workshop aim to contribute to a bottom-up, history from below approach to religion in communist Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the Cold War opening up discussion about the agency and creativity of religions in social, cultural and economic spheres in Romania, Moldova and beyond. It is intended that the contributors to this workshop will explore theoretical and methodological questions emerging from a range of scholarly perspectives including history from below, anthropology of Christianity, vernacular and material religion, and the anthropology of borders.

*

PROGRAM

9.30–9.40 Welcome remarks

Valentina SANDU-DEDIU, Rector, New Europe College / Professor of Musicology, National University of Music, Bucharest
Andreas and Ioana WILD, Lapedatu Foundation

Panel 1: 09.40–11.40

Instituting Confessional and Ethno-national Boundaries
Chair: James A. KAPALÓ

Between Catholicism and Eastern Christianity: The Greek Catholic Community of Bicaz in 19th and 20th Century Transylvania
Ionel MOLDOVAN, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași

Drawing and Redrawing Religious and Ethnic Boundaries in the 20th Century History of a Former Greek Catholic Village Community in Transylvania
Eszter GYŐRFY, Institute of Ethnology, Budapest

Personal Narratives Investigating the Daily and Situational Experience of Inochentist Praxis
Dorina DRAGNEA, National Institute of Heritage, Romania

Coffee break: 11.40–12.00

Panel 2: 12.00–13.00

Memory, Materiality and Confessional Boundaries
Chair: Dumitru LISNIC

The Songbook as an Expression of Religious Identity: The Tudorist Community in Romania
Iuliana CINDREA, “George Barițiu” Institute, Cluj Napoca

The Sylvan Church: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Pilgrimage on the Grounds of Hope
Julia BUYSKYKH, University College Cork

Lunch: 13.00–14.00

Panel 3: 14.00–15.30

Religious Networks and the Transgression of Frontiers and Administrative Borders
Chair: Constantin ARDELEANU

Transcending Boundaries: The Clandestine Ukrainian Greek Catholic Clergy in Soviet-ruled Galicia
Kateryna BUDZ, University of Edinburgh

Troubling Religions on Maps: NKVD’s Liquidation Commissions, Administrative Borders, and the German Lutheran Colonies of Tiraspol County in the 1920s
Dumitru LISNIC, “Alecu Russo” University of Balți

Traversing Máriapócs: The Greek Catholic Underground Across Borders
James A. KAPALÓ, University College Cork

Coffee break: 15.30–16.00

Panel 4: 16.00–17.00

State Borders and Religious Identities in Flux
Chair: James A. KAPALÓ

“Counter-Revolutionaries” in Soviet Occupied Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, 1940–1941
Iemima Daniela PLOSCARIU, Dublin City University

Religiosity in the Former Moldavian SSR: From Inception to Collapse
Dumitru DODUL and Eugeniu TOCARSCHII, Moldova State University

Final Discussion and Publication Planning: 17.00–18.00

This workshop is organized in connection with the Lapedatu Fellowships at NEC, sponsored by the Lapedatu Foundation (www.lapedatu.com).