Lucian Turcescu
I am a Professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. A past Chair (2011-2016) and past Graduate Program Director (2007-2011, 2016-2018) of the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia, I was also Chair (2004-5) of the Religious Studies Department at St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. I have done research, published, and taught in several areas, including religion and politics, early Christianity, and ecumenism. Most of my books benefited from the generous financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. My most recent books include Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017, co-editor with Lavinia Stan), Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe (Oxford University Press, 2011 co-authored with L. Stan), Religion and Politics in Post-communist Romania (Oxford University Press, 2007, co-authored with L. Stan), The Reception and Interpretation of the Bible in Late Antiquity (E.J. Brill, 2008, co-edited with L. DiTommaso), and the single-authored monograph Gregory of Nyssa and the Concept of Divine Persons (Oxford University Press, 2005). I am Past President of the Canadian Society of Patristic Studies (2004‐2008) and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. I served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism (2016-Present) and the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion, and the Corporation’s combined program director (1999‐2002). In 2010 I received the Concordia University Dean’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship.
Phone: +1 (514) 848-2424 ext. 2341
Address: Theological Studies Department
Concordia University
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8, Canada
Phone: +1 (514) 848-2424 ext. 2341
Address: Theological Studies Department
Concordia University
1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8, Canada
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Books by Lucian Turcescu
Table of Contents
Central Europe
Catholic Church, Stasi, and Post-communism in Germany by Gregor Buß
Lustration and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland by Mikołaj Kunicki
Religion and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic by Frank Cibulka
Slovakian Catholics and Lutherans Facing the Communist Past by Pavol Jakubčin
The Balkans
The Romanian Orthodox Church Rewriting Its History by Lucian Turcescu
Bulgaria: Revealed Secrets, Unreckoned Past by Momchil Metodiev
Transitional-Unconditional Justice? The Case of the Catholic Church of Albania by Ines Angeli Murzaku
The Baltic Republics
Comfortably Numb: The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church During and After the Soviet Era by Atko Remmel and Priit Rohtmets
The Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches in Latvia by Solveiga Krumina-Konkova
The Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania and Its Soviet Past by Arūnas Streikus
Former Soviet Republics in Europe
The Russian Orthodox Church and Its Communist Past by Lavinia Stan
Restorative Justice and Orthodox Church in Belarus by Nelly Bekus
Part One: The Romanian Orthodox Church
Prison Saints: Memorialization, Sacralization, and Collective Catharsis by Monica Ciobanu
Go-Betweens and Intersections: The Communist Inspectors for Religious Denominations, a Case Study by Anca Șincan
Collaboration with the Communists in the Orthodox Theological Institutes by Lucian Turcescu
Orthodox Churches and Political Strategies in Romania and Yugoslavia by Lucian N. Leustean
Part Two: Catholic Churches
The Roman Catholic Church during and after the Communist Regime by Zoltán Mihály Nagy and Csaba Zoltán Novák
The Greek Catholic Church: A Troubled Recent Past and a Painful Transitional Justice by Cristian Vasile
Part Three: Protestant Churches
The Reformed Elite Facing the Communist Regime by Csongor Jánosi
Resistance, Conformation and Service: The Unitarian Church during 1945-1965 by János Pál
The Pentecostals and the Legacy of Communism by Vasilică Croitor
Examines the impact of religious actors and dogmas on politics, and of the political use of religious symbols and actors. Draws on new sources of information following the collapse of the communist regime
Stan and Turcescu examine the complex relationship between church and state in this new Romania, providing analysis in key areas: church collaboration with communist authorities, post-communist electoral politics, nationalism and ethno-politics, restitution of Greek Catholic property, religious education, and sexual behavior and reproduction. Stan and Turcescu also examine church archives, legislation, news reports, and interviews with politicians and church leaders. This study will move the debate from common analyses of nationalism in isolation to more comprehensive investigations which consider the impact of religious actors on a multitude of other issues relevant to the political and social life of the country.
In this study Lucian Turcescu shows that the fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nyssa developed a very sophisticated concept of the person in the context of his attempts to clarify the paradox of the Trinity-a single God comprising three distinct persons. Turcescu offers the first in-depth analysis of Gregory's writings about the divine persons. He shows that Gregory understood personhood as characterized by uniqueness, relationality, and freedom. He reasoned that the three persons of the Trinity have distinctive properties that make them individuals, that is, capable of being enumerated and circumscribed. But this idea of individuation, inherited from the neo-Platonists, falls short of expressing a clear notion of personal uniqueness. By itself it would suggest that a person is merely a collection of properties. Gregory's great contribution was to perceive the importance of relationality to personhood. The three divine persons know and love each other, are in communion with each other, and freely act together in their common will. This understanding, argues Turcescu, adds up to a concept of personal uniqueness much like our modern one.
Turcescu's work not only contributes to our knowledge of the history of Trinitarian theology but can be helpful to theologians who are dealing with issues in contemporary ethics.
Book chapters by Lucian Turcescu
The Romanian episcopate's first bishop, Policarp Morușcă (1935-1939), was prevented from returning to his post after a visit to Romania as WWII broke out, and even more so after Communism arrived in Romania with the Soviet tanks in 1944. His place was taken by Andrei Moldovan (1950-1963), when a group of priests who decided to remain faithful to the patriarchate in Bucharest designated him as their bishop and created a parallel structure that came to be eventually known as the Romanian Orthodos Metropolia of America (ROMA). In response to these developments, the initial episcopate (ROEA) congress decided to choose its own bishop in the person of the controversial Valerian Trifa (1950-1984), who was one of the leaders of the fascist Legionary Movement in interwar Romania, instigated the Legionary rebellion of January 1941, and profited from the Cold War to make his way to the United States as a refugee. Trifa was later succeeded by Nathaniel Popp (1984-present), and Moldovan by Victorin Ursache (1966-2001) and then by two bishops, Nicolae Condrea (2002-present) and Ioan Casian Tunaru (2017-present). At the height of the confrontation between the ROMA and the ROEA, the Communist authorities sent out controversial Archimandrite Valeriu Anania, a former Legionary Movement member who later became a Communist agent, to undermine Trifa. Trifa surrendered his American citizenship after Ceaușescu's Securitate got involved in the uncovering of Trifa's fascist past to the American authorities in the late 1970s. Post-Communist efforts at the reunification of the two dioceses have managed to reestablish sacramental communion but not reunification, with the ROMA remaining an autonomous diocese under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Church, while the ROEA is part of the Orthodox Church in America. While the ROMA's Metropolitan Nicolae Condrea and Bishop Ioan Casian Tunaru are uncompromised, educated in the West, and willing to see some form of unity between the two Romanian dioceses, the ROEA's bishop Nathaniel bears with him the burden of the past and may not be too open to reconciliation. The split between the two ecclesiastical units is no longer justified, and hopefully the future will make it possible for them to be one.
Papers by Lucian Turcescu
Table of Contents
Central Europe
Catholic Church, Stasi, and Post-communism in Germany by Gregor Buß
Lustration and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland by Mikołaj Kunicki
Religion and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic by Frank Cibulka
Slovakian Catholics and Lutherans Facing the Communist Past by Pavol Jakubčin
The Balkans
The Romanian Orthodox Church Rewriting Its History by Lucian Turcescu
Bulgaria: Revealed Secrets, Unreckoned Past by Momchil Metodiev
Transitional-Unconditional Justice? The Case of the Catholic Church of Albania by Ines Angeli Murzaku
The Baltic Republics
Comfortably Numb: The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church During and After the Soviet Era by Atko Remmel and Priit Rohtmets
The Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches in Latvia by Solveiga Krumina-Konkova
The Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania and Its Soviet Past by Arūnas Streikus
Former Soviet Republics in Europe
The Russian Orthodox Church and Its Communist Past by Lavinia Stan
Restorative Justice and Orthodox Church in Belarus by Nelly Bekus
Part One: The Romanian Orthodox Church
Prison Saints: Memorialization, Sacralization, and Collective Catharsis by Monica Ciobanu
Go-Betweens and Intersections: The Communist Inspectors for Religious Denominations, a Case Study by Anca Șincan
Collaboration with the Communists in the Orthodox Theological Institutes by Lucian Turcescu
Orthodox Churches and Political Strategies in Romania and Yugoslavia by Lucian N. Leustean
Part Two: Catholic Churches
The Roman Catholic Church during and after the Communist Regime by Zoltán Mihály Nagy and Csaba Zoltán Novák
The Greek Catholic Church: A Troubled Recent Past and a Painful Transitional Justice by Cristian Vasile
Part Three: Protestant Churches
The Reformed Elite Facing the Communist Regime by Csongor Jánosi
Resistance, Conformation and Service: The Unitarian Church during 1945-1965 by János Pál
The Pentecostals and the Legacy of Communism by Vasilică Croitor
Examines the impact of religious actors and dogmas on politics, and of the political use of religious symbols and actors. Draws on new sources of information following the collapse of the communist regime
Stan and Turcescu examine the complex relationship between church and state in this new Romania, providing analysis in key areas: church collaboration with communist authorities, post-communist electoral politics, nationalism and ethno-politics, restitution of Greek Catholic property, religious education, and sexual behavior and reproduction. Stan and Turcescu also examine church archives, legislation, news reports, and interviews with politicians and church leaders. This study will move the debate from common analyses of nationalism in isolation to more comprehensive investigations which consider the impact of religious actors on a multitude of other issues relevant to the political and social life of the country.
In this study Lucian Turcescu shows that the fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nyssa developed a very sophisticated concept of the person in the context of his attempts to clarify the paradox of the Trinity-a single God comprising three distinct persons. Turcescu offers the first in-depth analysis of Gregory's writings about the divine persons. He shows that Gregory understood personhood as characterized by uniqueness, relationality, and freedom. He reasoned that the three persons of the Trinity have distinctive properties that make them individuals, that is, capable of being enumerated and circumscribed. But this idea of individuation, inherited from the neo-Platonists, falls short of expressing a clear notion of personal uniqueness. By itself it would suggest that a person is merely a collection of properties. Gregory's great contribution was to perceive the importance of relationality to personhood. The three divine persons know and love each other, are in communion with each other, and freely act together in their common will. This understanding, argues Turcescu, adds up to a concept of personal uniqueness much like our modern one.
Turcescu's work not only contributes to our knowledge of the history of Trinitarian theology but can be helpful to theologians who are dealing with issues in contemporary ethics.
The Romanian episcopate's first bishop, Policarp Morușcă (1935-1939), was prevented from returning to his post after a visit to Romania as WWII broke out, and even more so after Communism arrived in Romania with the Soviet tanks in 1944. His place was taken by Andrei Moldovan (1950-1963), when a group of priests who decided to remain faithful to the patriarchate in Bucharest designated him as their bishop and created a parallel structure that came to be eventually known as the Romanian Orthodos Metropolia of America (ROMA). In response to these developments, the initial episcopate (ROEA) congress decided to choose its own bishop in the person of the controversial Valerian Trifa (1950-1984), who was one of the leaders of the fascist Legionary Movement in interwar Romania, instigated the Legionary rebellion of January 1941, and profited from the Cold War to make his way to the United States as a refugee. Trifa was later succeeded by Nathaniel Popp (1984-present), and Moldovan by Victorin Ursache (1966-2001) and then by two bishops, Nicolae Condrea (2002-present) and Ioan Casian Tunaru (2017-present). At the height of the confrontation between the ROMA and the ROEA, the Communist authorities sent out controversial Archimandrite Valeriu Anania, a former Legionary Movement member who later became a Communist agent, to undermine Trifa. Trifa surrendered his American citizenship after Ceaușescu's Securitate got involved in the uncovering of Trifa's fascist past to the American authorities in the late 1970s. Post-Communist efforts at the reunification of the two dioceses have managed to reestablish sacramental communion but not reunification, with the ROMA remaining an autonomous diocese under the jurisdiction of the Romanian Orthodox Church, while the ROEA is part of the Orthodox Church in America. While the ROMA's Metropolitan Nicolae Condrea and Bishop Ioan Casian Tunaru are uncompromised, educated in the West, and willing to see some form of unity between the two Romanian dioceses, the ROEA's bishop Nathaniel bears with him the burden of the past and may not be too open to reconciliation. The split between the two ecclesiastical units is no longer justified, and hopefully the future will make it possible for them to be one.