During the Roman Empire, present-day Romania represented one of the territories associated with this vast empire. At the time, the people of Romania, known as the Dacians, practiced the early Christian faith spread by the Roman Empire throughout Europe at the turn of the millennium. After the Great Schism of 1054, in which the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches split from one another, historical records describe the establishment of the Metropolitanate of Moldova, an early precursor of the Church of Romania.
In 1568, the Orthodox Romanians living in this region voted to establish the Romanian language as the official language used in the Divine Liturgy in Romanian Churches. The Divine Liturgy represents the primary service of worship within Eastern Orthodox churches such as the Church of Romania.
Because Romania was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries, a true Romanian Orthodox Church was not formed until the country gained independence in 1878. By 1885, the Romanian Church was recognized as an autocephalous church, meaning that the Church of Romania had the power to establish its own authority and elect its own leaders. In 1925, the Romanian Orthodox Church rose to a Patriarchate, in which the leader of the Church of Romania was recognized as having the same authority as the leaders of other Eastern Orthodox churches.
After World War II, Romania became part of the Soviet bloc and established a communist form of governance in which Romania's religion and its churches were forced to work in concert with the government. Despite the growth of Communism in Romania during the mid-20th century, the Romanian Orthodox faith continued to flourish throughout the country, particularly in rural regions, where churches had less oversight from the government.
With the overthrow of Romanian dictator Ceauşescu in 1989, the Romanian Orthodox Church grew in both size and influence, with a majority of Romanians continuing to practice the Romanian Orthodox faith well into the 21st century. As of 2007, there were over 13,497 Romanian Orthodox parishes in Romania, with fifteen university programs devoted to Orthodox theology. These statistics point to the continued influence of the Romanian Orthodox faith upon the daily lives of Romanians.
