Nominees for the Archbishopric in Cluj

Both His Holiness Andrei Andreicuţ and His Blessed Irineu Bistriţeanul are the two nominees appointed for the Archbishopric of Cluj, a position left empty after the death of the Metropolitan Bartolomeu Anania.

They were appointed by secret ballot by the seventh bishops of the Holy Synod of Cluj together with Patriarch Daniel, Metropolitan substitute.

His Holiness Andrei Andreicuţ is sixty two and he is from Maramureş. He has been bishop since 1990 when he became a vicar Bishop for the Bishopric in Alba Iulia.

Since 1998, he has been Archbishop in Alba Iulia where lies the diocese that pastors the orthodox people in counties such as Alba and Mureş. Before studying Theology the Archbishop Andrei had graduated the Faculty of Railways Engineering in Bucharest.

In 2005, he applied for the Archbishopric in Ardeal when he was supported by the Metropolitan Bartolomeu Anania.

In 2007, the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives sentenced Andrei Andreicuţ for having worked for Secret police but his sentence was canceled in 2008 by the Court of Appeal in Alba Iulia.

His Blessed Irineu Bistriţeanul is fifty eight and he is from Maramureş, too. In 1990, he became a vicar bishop for the Archbishopric of Vadu, Feleacu and Cluj, a rank that he has never left.

The Bishop Irineu is a professor at the Faculty of Ortodox Teology, Babeş Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca, where he has been teaching Christian Morality and Spirituality since 1994.

In 1990s, His Blessed Irineu was involved in the ‘the New Jerusalem’ religious phenomenon when he blessed the building of an institution in Pucioasa, in Dâmboviţa. Subsequently, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Curch took the aforementioned phenomenon as unorthodox and sectarian and the Bishop Irineu denied his membership.

On Tuesday, 15 March, the Diocesan Assembly from Vadu, Feleacu and Cluj will be gathering together in order to decide whether there will be nominated a third candidate beside the two.

On Friday, 18 March, the list of candidates will be presented to the Holy Synod which, according to the Statue of the Romanian Orthodox Church, will be able to nominate a fourth candidate.

Then, the members of the Holy Synod will set aside, by secret ballot, the future Metropolitan of Cluj, of Alba, of Crişana and of Maramureş.

Translated by: Cristina Anamaria Maricescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University