Romanian Catholics Persecuted and Martyred by Communists

Johannes Habsburg

In 1950 a prisoner of the communist authorities, held in a Franciscan monastery, Bishop Janos Scheffler managed to send one last message to his flock: "Remain faithful … even up to a martyr's death." Two years later th8e unbreakable man of Satu Mare, Romania, was dead. A bishop who lead by example remained true to his word. (Photos of the Rumanian bishops made at the time of their imprisonment) At the end of the Second World War Romania found itself among those countries dominated by imposed communist regimes. In keeping with communist methodology Georgiju Dej's dictatorship, and later that of Nicolae Ceausescu, was characterized, amongst other things, by an intense stifling of all manifestations of religious life. The main aim of its religious policy was the wholesale nationalization of all Churches.

In 1948 Romania broke off diplomatic relations with the Holy See. As so often under communism, the worst repressions befell the Greek Catholic Church, in full communion with the Bishop of Rome by virtue of the Act of Union of 1700. In October 1948 the authorities rounded up thirty-six Greek Catholic priests from Transylvania in the town of Cluj and induced them to sign a document pursuant to which the Greek Catholic Church would "return" to the Orthodox Church. All of Romania's Greek Catholic bishops were arrested, and on December 1st the government issued a decree by which the Greek Catholic Church officially ceased to exist. Over five hundred priests, nuns and members of the laity were imprisoned.

The state confiscated all Greek Catholic churches and property, handing most of it over to the Orthodox Church. It was at that time that the government also banned the Roman Catholic Bishop Janos Scheffler (1887-1952) of the Satu Mare diocese from performing any public duties. Two years later, he was interned in a Franciscan monastery, though he still managed to maintain contact with his diocese, secretly appointed several replacements and was able to send a final message of consolation to his faithful. Because of his moral strength and unbending attitude, in 1952 he was transferred to a secret underground prison in Bucharest. While bathing, guards released boiling water causing serious multiple burns. He died from his wounds on December 6th 1952. 

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