Romania's Greek-Catholics, commune by commune: how many there were in 1930 and how many today

1930

In 1930 nearly all Greek-Catholics lived in the country's north-west#

Romania's census of December 1930 counted 1,427,391 Greek-Catholics, nearly 8 in 100 inhabitants. 96 in 100 of them lived in what are now the 16 counties of Transylvania, Banat, Crișana and Maramureș (the regions Romania gained from Hungary in 1918–20). The map shows, for each present-day commune, how many in 100 members of the two Byzantine-rite churches were Greek-Catholic.

In the counties of Satu Mare (96 in 100), Sălaj (88), Maramureș (87), Bistrița-Năsăud (83) and Cluj (73), Byzantine-rite Christians were mostly Greek-Catholic. In Banat and Arad they were mostly Orthodox: Timiș 7 in 100, Caraș-Severin 7, Arad 6.

1948–1989

A church dissolved, and a question dropped from the census#

Decree no. 358 of 1 December 1948 dissolved the Greek-Catholic Church. The property of its institutions passed to the state, except that of the parishes, and the parish churches went to the Orthodox Church. The Greek-Catholic bishops had been arrested at the end of October 1948.

The censuses of 1948, 1956, 1966 and 1977 did not record religion. The question returned at the census of January 1992, so the page compares 1930 with 1992 and the censuses after it.

1992

At the first census after 1989, 206,833 people declared themselves Greek-Catholic#

Decree-Law no. 9 of 31 December 1989 repealed the 1948 decree. At the census of January 1992, 206,833 people in the 16 counties declared themselves Greek-Catholic. Counted over all 16 counties, not only the communes with many Greek-Catholics, they made up 3.7 in 100 members of the two churches, against 42 in 100 in 1930.

For most communes, 1992 remained the year with the most Greek-Catholics. Among communes with at least 200 Greek-Catholics in 1930 and at least 50 in 1992, it is so in 243 of 354.

2002–2021

Since then the number has fallen at every census#

In the 16 counties, 177,555 people declared themselves Greek-Catholic in 2002, 142,862 in 2011 and 109,298 in 2021. Across Romania in 2021: 115,457.

The Greek-Catholics' share of the two churches fell too: across the 16 counties, from 3.7 to 2.7 in 100. Among communes with at least 200 Greek-Catholics in 1930 and at least 20 in 1992, it fell in 392 of 510. So the Greek-Catholic count fell faster than the Orthodox one. In 2021 no religion was recorded for 12 in 100 residents of these counties; the page's numbers use only people with a recorded religion.

Where it held

How much of the 1930 share is found again in 2021#

For the 669 communes with at least 200 Greek-Catholics in 1930, the map compares their share of the two churches in 2021 with their share in 1930. In the typical commune, one part in 40 remains; across all of them together, one in 18.

In communes where nearly all residents were Greek-Catholic in 1930, few residents declared themselves Greek-Catholic in 2021. Of the 160 communes where more than 80 in 100 residents were Greek-Catholic in 1930, 124 are now below 5 in 100. Only four are above a quarter: Târșolț (64), Sarasău (47), Șișești (41) and Călinești (33), all Romanian villages in the Oaș country and Maramureș.

More than half of today's Greek-Catholics in the 16 counties (56 in 100) live in towns and cities; the most in Cluj-Napoca (10,862), Satu Mare (5,046), Oradea (4,528), Baia Mare (4,238). In Blaj, the seat of the church's major archbishop, there are 2,408, 17 in 100 members of the two churches.

What goes with it

More of the 1930 share held on in mixed communes#

A calculation made on 11 counties tried to rank the communes of the other five (Arad, Brașov, Hunedoara, Mureș and Satu Mare) by how much held on. Across their 203 communes it got the order right with a correlation of 0.38 (1 would be the exact order, 0 no better than chance): better than chance, far from a forecast. The threshold set before the calculation was 0.40: these data cannot forecast where Greek-Catholics held on.

Three things point the same way in the five counties that were left out. More of the 1930 share held on where Greek-Catholics were a smaller part of the commune, where they lived beside Roman Catholics, Reformed (Calvinists) or Unitarians, and nearer a Greek-Catholic bishop's see. In the five counties, where members of those three churches were under 5 in 100 residents in 1930, the typical commune kept 1.1 in 100 of its 1930 share; where they were more than half, 4.9 in 100.

There is a limit here. In 2021, 33 in 100 Greek-Catholics in Satu Mare county and 21 in 100 in Bihor declared Hungarian ethnicity, and the census does not give believers' ethnicity by commune. Mixed communes therefore also count Hungarian-speaking Greek-Catholics, who cannot be told apart from Romanian ones here. In communes that were more than 80 in 100 Romanian in 1930, the link almost disappears (correlation 0.11).

In the five counties used for checking, the typical town kept more of its 1930 share than the typical commune: 5.0 against 1.8 in 100. Among communes with a Romanian majority alone, the difference no longer clears the threshold set beforehand, so the data support no conclusion about towns.

What it cannot show

What these numbers cannot tell#

A census shows who declared themselves Greek-Catholic in a given year, not whether it is the same family as in 1930. The page has no commune-level data on churches given back after 1990 or on priests who served in secret after 1948, so it cannot check how they relate to the change in the Greek-Catholic share.

Communes with fewer than 200 Greek-Catholics in 1930 appear on the map but are left out of the calculations. For eight present-day communes, the 1930 tables give no separate numbers for their villages. Communes outside the 16 counties have only the 2021 numbers.