University of London Democracy and Miracles: Political and Religious Agency in an-Orthodo^ Convent and Village of South Central Romania by Alice I. Forbess A thesis submitted to the Anthropology Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science for the degree of Ph.D. 2005 1 UMI Number: U615864 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U615864 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ^ ( + S Q , / / 2 2 ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the strategic exercise of political and religious agency in a Romanian Orthodox convent and the village surrounding it, during the local and national elections of 2000. It examines how three groups living in an isolated river valley, Romanian peasants, Roma traders and Orthodox nuns, made use of two fields of social action newly opened by the collapse of socialism—democratic politics and religious devotion—in order to maximize their access to power and economic re­ sources. Using archival research, oral histories, interviews and extensive participant observation, the thesis traces the political life of Horezu convent, an important estate of the Orthodox Church, over its 300-year history, focusing particularly on the social­ ist and post-socialist periods. It examines the shifts in the convent population and monastic ideology, relations with the surrounding village and with political authori­ ties. Horezu convent became a focus of attention in post-socialist times when its founder, Prince Constantin Brancoveanu, was sanctified by the Orthodox Church in 1992. Linking religious and national symbolism, this sanctification was an expression of the efforts of the Church and of its allied political actors to distance themselves from associations with the socialist regime. During the socialist period, the commu­ nity of nuns at Horezu had developed close relations with members of the Party elite, and they continued to rely on these connections when, after socialism’s collapse, these elites re-emerged as important political actors. Whilst the convent was able to thrive thanks to its privileged political connec­ tions, local peasant workers’ living standards were severely deteriorating, due to the closure of former state-owned industry in the area. Increased competition over dwin­ dling state resources, and a growing dependency on the local political elites who con­ trolled their redistribution exacerbated tensions, leading to a growing separation be­ tween the three local groups, Romanians, Romas and nuns. 2 CONTENTS Abstract 2 List of Illustrations 6 Structure of the Thesis 8 Introduction: Orthodoxy and Politics in Post-Socialist Romania 11 The Setting of the Thesis 14 Orthodoxy and Politics: Some Key Issues 24 Revolution and Charisma 33 Everyday Practices of Freedom 36 Fieldwork 40 Illustrations 45 Chapter 1: A Spiritual Amusement Village 51 Dracula in Romani 60 Local Anxieties 63 Economic Tensions 66 Separating the Dead 72 Conclusion 79 Illustrations 81 Chapter 2: Of Monks and Men: Life at Horezu until the Early 20tV» Century 90 Vassalage to the Sublime Porte (1505-1714) 91 Hellenisation (1714-1860) 100 ‘Secularisation’ and Church ‘Nationalisation’ 114 Conclusion 120 Illustrations 123 Chapter 3: Nuns and the Nomenklatura 131 The Communist Take-over 135 Internal Power Struggles and External Authorities 138 Strategies for Coping with Expulsion 140 Horezu as a Socialist Estate 141 The Transition to Post-Socialism 146 Conclusion 150 Chapter 4: From Hitchhiking Nuns to Charismatic Supermonks: Romanian Orthodox Monasticism in the 20th Century 152 Freedom, Misbehaviour and Charisma 159 4 The Theory of Self-Transformation 164 The Religious Education of Young Nuns 166 Motivations for Joining the Convent 170 Duhovnicia (the Task of the Confessor) 172 Conclusion 178 Illustrations 180 Chapter 5: Potemkin Democracy? Elections in a Wallachian Village 184 Socialist Power 187 New Power 189 Power Coalitions and Political Identity 191 Local Elections 193 Group Interests and Mobilisation 207 Conclusion 208 Concluding Remarks 211 Notes 215 Bibliography 218 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustrations for the Introduction 45-50 Illustrations for Chapter 1 81-89 Illustrations for Chapter 2 123-130 Illustrations for Chapter 4 180-183 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Should my fieldwork have somehow failed to impress upon me the true mean­ ing of askesis, the process of writing this thesis did not fail to do so—and heartfelt gratitude is extended to my supervisors, Dr. Deborah James and Prof. Peter Loizos, my own ascetic masters and confessors(duhovnici), for guiding me through. Special thanks are owed to all the members of the LSE Anthropology Depart­ ment for their generosity and support over the years. I gratefully acknowledge awards from the Ernest Gellner Memorial Fund at the LSE, and the Alfred Gell Memorial Scholarship and a Departmental Grant, administered by the LSE Anthropology De­ partment. The members and leaders of the LSE writing up seminar provided insight­ ful comments on earlier drafts of various chapters included here. I am also greatly indebted to Prof. Katherine Verdery, who invited me to spend time at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor during the early stages of the writing-up process, and who has provided great support and insightful comments. During the final stages, Dr. Catherine Alexander has been an invaluable source of in­ spiration and encouragement. The members of the Goldsmiths College Anthropology Department have, likewise, been a positive, supportive influence. Michael Stewart, Frances Pine, and the collective of the Max Planck Institute (Halle) have also contrib­ uted stimulating discussion and encouragement. In Romania, Prof. Vintila Mihailescu, Dr. Eniko Magyari-Vincze, as well as many other scholarly friends have generously contributed insights, useful contacts and the benefit of their experience. Most of all, this work is due to the contributions of all my informants. Of these, Mother Visalia, a talented and exciting storyteller and an intelligent analyst of village and convent affairs, has contributed the most. Many nuns, as well as villagers freely granted the privilege of their intimacy and insight. Special thanks must go to Oliver Weeks, for his humour, soothing influence and excellent cooking, to my mother for her unwavering support, and to my family in Romania, for all the wine, moonshine and conversation. Finally, my greatest debt of gratitude is to my grandparents, Zora and Misu Mateescu, to whom this work is dedicated, as well as to Tache Mateescu and Cati Tintorescu, for making the world of my childhood an extraordinary one, rendered irre­ trievable by their passing away. I hope some of their spirit has infiltrated this work. 7 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS The thesis examines political change and continuity in post-socialist Romania, through the prism of relations between an Orthodox convent and outsiders, both elite politicians and local villagers. It focuses on practices through which the boundaries between the convent and the world, between spiritual and secular life, were being continually created as well as dismantled, as a result of ongoing interactions with a range of outsiders, attracted to the convent by its historical, artistic and (to a lesser extent) spiritual renown. The first and final chapters frame the thesis by placing the convent and the vil­ lage Lower Romani, which lay immediately outside its gates, within the broader local context. The three intervening chapters examine relations between the convent and the political realm, in greater depth and from a historical perspective. The first chapter aims to show how relations between three local groups have been changed by the collapse of socialism. A second, related question is how each of these groups responds to the legitimacy-building strategies of national-level politi­ cians, who use the convent as a stage for political performance. The convent provides a link between national and local levels of discourse, but it is also an ambiguous sym­ bol, which resonates differently with different groups of people, so that ‘official’ ritu­ als, stressing the symbolic links between Orthodoxy, the Nation and present day poli­ ticians, often achieve little relevance locally. The second chapter is concerned with historical depth. It examines the rela­ tions between Romani and Horezu convent over the past 300 years, on the basis documents from the convent’s vast archive. It also traces how the church as an insti­ tution has interacted with a succession of political regimes, and how it has been af­ fected by the emergence of the modem secular nation state. A third theme is that of changes in local patterns of ownership, and the ways in which the intrusion of power­ ful outsiders (including the state and, to a lesser extent, the convent) has tended to ex­ ert a divisive influence upon local communities. The third chapter traces the fortunes of the convent during the socialist pe­ riod—a time when the state, through a long-term restoration project, entered within