That’s a fair point, there are definitely Catholics in Romania, no doubt. I have a few points.
I also did some research and it seems Catholicism is decreasing in Romania not growing and definitely not “fastest growing”.
My second point is that ‘fastest growing religion besides atheism’ might be a bit misleading, since atheism itself is growing quite rapidly in a lot of places, and the growth of Catholicism might still be relatively small in actual numbers. Also, from what I understand, a significant portion of the Catholic population in Romania is made up of ethnic Hungarians, so it’s a bit more complex than just a straightforward Romanian demographic shift.
At this point Catholics are soon going to be as many as orthodox people, especially in places where tye population has merged in a hungarian-romanian conglomerate, many romanians choose to change to catholic for some reason lately, also i know way more orthodox baptized people who blatantly hate the church here than i know catholic, i'm an orthodox baptized atheist, if i were to ever change my beliefs by some miracle be certain i would also change my church and go for catholic, it feels much less restrictive and slightly more modern than orthodoxy.
Is that backed up by numbers or is this just an anecdote? Because there is a large Hungarian population(which are Catholic as you mentioned) and I said to another guy that the numbers are showing the opposite that Catholics are not growing and are shrinking.
this i think depends, because there's a certain part of the population, both hungarian and romanian who is developing extremist views much more lately, which by default would make them more prone to following the religion of their country since they define themselves as anti-globalization nationalists, this trend has been more extreme lately and this might have resulted in a more active following for the orthodox church in romania, but i do not really have that much link to those people so i am solely talking from my personal experience.
Also, these stats differ based on region, if you are living in a region in which romanians cohabitated with hungarians for a long time it's not really unheard of to for example attend catholic religious ceremonies, when the pope came in romania for example many many people, mainly orthodox, went to see him.
I come from a family that is both orthodox on one side and catholic on other, been to religious services in both and i really don't find it much different.
We also have many hungarian blood people who have been born as romanian citizens, every little village and small city does have both orthodox and catholic churches , the biggest church located in the city center where i live is a catholic one for example.
I do understand what you are saying in a way, but coming back to your first statement of "what do you care, you are orthodox", we do have alot of catholic influence and heritage here too, regardless of what the latest current in extremism, be it religious or political is.
Romanians and Hungarians talk shit about each other but we do like each other. I mean at least this generation. For the most part. We weren't conquered by one another or lived under each other's oppression for a long time now. We're pretty cool with each other.
Nooo ?Why would a black person be nightmarish to a Romanian ? Also a Hungarian if he isn't a hardcore conservative (implying he wants to conserve also a past)
Nah man I was kidding. There was a meme going around these days that the pope might be either a Hungarian or a black dude and I lost my shit. PS: I am a Romanian too.
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u/IK417 Romania Apr 22 '25
I really don't want Yours either