Bucharest, Romania - A Romanian Orthodox bishop was an informant of the communist-era Securitate secret police ordered to infiltrate groups of Eastern Rite Catholics, a council studying Securitate archives said Thursday.
Andrei Andrecut, bishop for Alba in northwest Romania, was recruited in the 1980s and pressured into signing a written pledge to be an informant under the code name 'Ionica.' The Securitate particularly wanted him to spy on members of the banned Eastern Rite Catholic church, the state council for studying the Securitate archives said.
Andreicut denied having harmed anyone.
The bishop came from a family of Eastern Rite Catholic believers and would have been trusted by other believers. The Eastern Rite Catholic Church was banned in 1948 when the Communists came to power.
Andreicut was coerced into signing a pledge promising to inform or else risk being sent to jail, said Mircea Dinescu, a board member of the council studying the Securitate archives. "It is a sad case," he said.
The bishop wrote informative notes for the Securitate after signing the pledge. One board member called the notes "harmless."
Andreicut admitted in his 2002 autobiography that the Securitate forced him to inform on a close friend but said he only wrote "positive things."
However faced with Thursday's decision, he denied having been a real informant, saying he had been forced into agreeing to be an informant in 1983, or be sent to prison for allegedly trying to bribe an official, something he denied doing. "I was a victim," he said.
During communism, thousands of priests were imprisoned or sent to labor camps, alongside tens of thousands of other political prisoners. Many signed written pledges promising to be Securitate informants when they came out of prison.
Dinescu said that the Securitate file of Daniel, the new patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church had been burned during the 1989 anti-communist revolt. Daniel taught abroad during communism, a rare privilege and his links to the Securitate, like those of many other top Orthodox clergy, have never been clarified.
Mediafax news agency, citing council members, named seven other senior Orthodox clergy who allegedly collaborated with the Securitate, some of whom were sent abroad on spying missions under communism, the report said. Their files will be made public by the council in the following days.
An estimated 87 percent of Romania's 22 million inhabitants are Orthodox, and the church has enjoyed a revival since Communism fell in 1989.
The late patriarch Teoctist did not favor opening the Securitate files of Orthodox priests.
Since his death, there have been tense discussions over whether high-level clerics were Securitate collaborators. The church has criticized the debate, and has suggested priests need not publicly reveal their pasts.