Between nation and catholicity: From interwar Romanian orthodoxy to the contemporary crisis of ecclesial identity

This article examines the relationship between Orthodox Christianity and national identity through a theological and historical analysis of the Romanian case. It argues that an ecclesiological deformation emerges when ethnic belonging ceases to function as a cultural medium and becomes a constitutive principle of ecclesial identity. Drawing on patristic and canonical sources, the Council of Constantinople of 1872, and modern Orthodox scholarship, the study interprets ethnophyletism as the subordination of the Church to national purposes. The Romanian interwar period provides a revealing case: Nichifor Crainic's theological nationalism, Constantin Rădulescu-Motru's ethnic spiritualism, Liviu Stan's race-inflected discourse, and the Legionary sacralization of the nation. This legacy remains theologically relevant today, especially in debates concerning the ‘Prison Saints’. The article concludes that a recovery of Eucharistic and territorial catholicity is essential for a credible Orthodox witness.