B’nai B’rith International CEO Dan Mariaschin, along with Rabbi Andrew Baker, sent a letter to the Romanian Orthodox Church calling on the Church to remove three priests from a list of proposals for canonization who were either members of, or collaborated with, the anti-Semitic Legionary Movement during the Holocaust. Mariaschin and Baker both signed the letter as members of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania.

Read more in Free Europe Romania (in Romanian). Read below in English.

Holocaust survivors are asking Patriarch Daniel to remove three priests from a list of proposals for canonization. It is about Fr. Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae, Fr. Ilie Lăcătusu and Fr. Ilarion Felea who were either members of, or collaborated with, the Legionary Movement.

Priest Stăniloae is one of the 16 clerics for whom the Romanian Orthodox Church has begun canonization.

Romanian theologian, university professor, specialist in dogmatics, translator, writer and journalist – Stăniloae is considered one of the prominent authorities of Orthodox theology and the greatest Romanian theologian of the 20th century.

At the same time, Stăniloae is one of those who are accused of being ideologically close to the Legionary Movement. Stăniloae signed several articles in which he adopted the Jews.

Hilarion Felea is the second challenged priest.

Priest Felea died in Aiud prison on September 18, 1961, at 58 years old. He served three of the 20 years he was sentenced to – not for crimes involving Jewish victims, but for opposing communism.

The “Elie Wiesel” Institute claims that the priest Ilarion Felea founded the first legionary nest in Arad, in 1940 – St. John Gura de Aur. There, the legionary doctrine was studied and propaganda was made for this organization.

However, in October 2023, the official of the Romanian Orthodox Church, Basilica, claimed that Ilarion Felea “entered the legionary organization following the pressure of those who held political power in the fall of 1940”.

Ilie Lacătusu is the third prelate accused of legionary activity.

The “Elie Wiesel” Institute says that he would have carried out legionary activity as a nest leader and later of a legionary sector and took part in the January 1941 legionary rebellion as the leader of an insurrectionary group.

International organizations are asking the BOR to remove the three from the canonized list

The first of the international organizations to request a return to the BOR canonization decision of the three is the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel. It is an umbrella center for 55 organizations representing communities that suffered from Nazi persecution during the Second World War: from Western and Eastern Europe to North Africa.

The appeal is signed by the president Colette Avital, an Israeli diplomat of Romanian origin.

In a discussion with Europa Liberă Romania, Colette Avital, who is now 85 years old, hopes that her association’s action against a decision she characterizes as “outrageous” is not too late.

“A large part of the Holocaust in Romania was perpetrated by the legionnaires and the fascist Antonescu regime. It seems to me that, 80 years later, not only must we not forget, but we must not sanctify, canonize and give as models people who were legionnaires or had connections with legionnaires,” stated the former member of the Israeli Parliament.

Another letter addressed to the Romanian Orthodox Church comes from the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in the United States of America…and from B’nai B’rith International – “a leader national and global in promoting human rights, supporting Israel; providing stability for older adults; education for diversity; improving communities and helping communities in crisis.”

The two signatories – Rabbi Andrew Baker and Daniel Mariaschin – sign as members of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania, chaired by Elie Wiesel, which ended its work twenty years ago.

“I have noted with appreciation the many positive steps taken by Romania since then to address its Holocaust-era past, including the establishment of a Holocaust research center in Bucharest, named after the late Nobel laureate,” the letter reads.

The two signatories recognize that many leaders and followers of the Church were persecuted during the communist regime and deserve the sympathy and admiration of the faithful.

“However, there must be a clear line of separation of those clerics who were complicit in the Holocaust in Romania. These people can never be honored, let alone candidates for sainthood.

“Unfortunately, these days we are witnessing a dramatic increase in anti-Semitism across Europe, along with worrying actions that seek to deny or distort the history of the Holocaust,” the document added.

The two letters were also sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luminița Odobescu, and the Romanian ambassadors in Washington and Tel Aviv.

The Romanian Orthodox Church recently announced the canonization of 16 clerics. The decision is criticized by the “Elie Wiesel” Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania. Three of those proposed to become Orthodox saints – Ilarion Felea, Ilie Lăcătușu and Prof. Dumitru Stăniloae had connections and/or promoted the Legionary Movement, the fascist organization from the time of the Second World War.

The BOR spokesperson, Adrian Agachi, did not respond, by the time of publication of this article, to Free Europe’s requests to provide a point of view on the two documents.