A secular orthodoxy? Secularisation, involuntary self-secularisation, and missionary opportunity in post-communist Romania

Post-communist Romania presents a striking paradox: a country with more churches than schools, where over 85% of citizens identify as Orthodox, yet where sociological research documents the quiet erosion of Christian belief, practice, and ethics — especially among younger generations. This article argues that the paradox is not accidental. Through religious nationalism, compensatory post-communist rhetoric, ceremonial religiosity, and proximity to political agendas, the Orthodox Church inadvertently cultivates the conditions for the very secularisation it seeks to resist. A new concept is proposed to name this dynamic: horizontal legitimation — the shift that occurs when a church justifies its public relevance not by the eschatological truth of its eucharistic life, but by social utility, national function, or political alignment. Drawing on sociological theory, Orthodox theology, and missiological scholarship, the article maps these mechanisms and proposes a response grounded in the recovery of the Church's eschatological identity.