INTERCONFESIONALISM INTERBELIC: TEODOSIE BONTEANU ȘI «CHINURILE NAȘTERII CELEI DE-A DOUA»
Interwar Interconfessionalism: Teodosie Bonteanu and „The Torments of the Second Birth”

Summary/Abstract: Teodosie Bonteanu began his career in the higher monastic clergy as an Orthodox archimandrite and abbot of Cetățuia Monastery in Iași. In 1937 he joined the Greek Catholic Church. He also met Daniil Ciubotaru, former abbot of Neamt Monastery, who in turn became a Greek Catholic in 1940. In the same year, they both tried to bring the Romanian Orthodox priests who had fled from Bessarabia to the Union with Rome. On the other hand, we know that Orthodox circles – especially the clergy and especially the Moldovan clergy – were enthusiastic supporters of the Legionary Movement; the year of Bonteanu’s conversion, 1937, is close to the peak of the Iron Guard’s activity in Romania. It seems that Bonteanu was not a sympathizer of the legionaries and no legionary propaganda is evident in his works.Bonteanu is a little-known figure in current official Greek Catholic discourse. His writings have not been republished since the 1990s, when “The Torments of the Second Birth” was reprinted. Although he was quite active in inter-war confessional publicity, with good pro-Catholic propaganda and all the more so since it came – it seems – from a former Orthodox who had sincerely converted to Catholicism.

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