of Jassy and Bucarest send one member each to the Senate, the
heir to the throne and the eight bishops being members by right.]

The state religion is Greek Orthodox. Up to 1864 the Rumanian Church was
subordinate to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In that year it was
proclaimed independent, national, and autocephalous, though this change
was not recognized by the Patriarchate till 1885, while the secularization
of the property of the monasteries put an end _de facto_ to the influence
of the Greek clergy. Religious questions of a dogmatic nature are settled
by the Holy Synod of Bucarest, composed of the two metropolitans of
Bucarest and Jassy and the eight bishops; the Minister for Education, with
whom the administrative part of the Church rests, having only a
deliberative vote. The maintenance of the Church and of the clergy is
included in the general budget of the country, the ministers being state
officials (Law of 1893).

Religion has never played an important part in Rumanian national life, and
was generally limited to merely external practices. This may be attributed
largely to the fact that as the Slavonic language had been used in the
Church since the ninth century and then was superseded by Greek up to the
nineteenth century, the clergy was foreign, and was neither in a position
nor did it endeavour to acquire a spiritual influence over the Rumanian
peasant. There is no record whatever in Rumanian history of any religious
feuds or dissensions. The religious passivity remained unstirred even
during the domination of the Turks, who contented themselves with treating
the unbelievers with contempt, and squeezing as much money as possible out
of them. Cuza having made no provision for the clergy when he converted
the wealth of the monasteries to the state, they were left for thirty
years in complete destitution, and remained as a consequence outside the
general intellectual development of the country. Though the situation has
much improved since the Law of 1893, which incorporated the priests with
the other officials of the Government, the clergy, recruited largely from
among the rural population, are still greatly inferior to the Rumanian
priests of Bucovina and Transylvania. Most of them take up Holy orders as
a profession: 'I have known several country parsons who were thorough
atheists.'[1]

[Footnote 1: R. Rosetti, _Pentru ce s-au r[)a]sculat [t'][)a]ranii_, 1907,
p. 600]

However difficult his task, Pri