Urging Romania to Provide Restitution to Religious Communities
URGING ROMANIA TO PROVIDE RESTITUTION TO RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES -- (House of Representatives - May 23, 2005)
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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be a cosponsor of this bill, and I commend Mr. LANTOS and Mr. TANCREDO for bringing this matter before the Congress. The process of providing restitution or compensation for property confiscated by former regimes in Romania has been slow, complicated and difficult. We have raised concerns about this with Romanian authorities for many years now.
As of July 2003, more than 200,000 claims for property restitution had been filed in Romania by individuals, and more than 7,000 claims had been filed by religious denominations and communal groups. As the bill indicates, the historic Hungarian churches--including the Evangelical Lutheran, Hungarian Reformed, Roman Catholic and Unitarian--lost more than 2,000 schools, hospitals, orphanages and other institutions under the communist regime in Romania.
Jewish communal properties were decimated by the Fascist regime that ruled Romania during World War II, and those confiscations were reaffirmed by the postwar communist government. Mr. Speaker, the status of more than 1700 Jewish communal properties remains unresolved.
Further, the plight of Romania's Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church, which was banned by the communist government in 1948, is particularly distressful. More than 2,000 churches and other buildings seized from the Uniates were given to Orthodox parishes. The government decree that dismantled the Greek Catholic Church was abrogated in 1989; however, fewer than 200 of their confiscated properties have been returned.
Mr. Speaker, I was pleased that the new government of Romania recently announced the creation of the National Authority for Property Restitution to implement Romania's property restitution laws, and it is my understanding that next week a legislative package designed to remedy these property issues is expected to be introduced. Apparently special attention will be paid to properties once belonging to religious communities and national minorities. The goal is for all outstanding claims to be resolved by the end of 2006. This would be a welcomed achievement.
For 15 years, these property claims have been a source of anguish and frustration for so many Romanians. The political will being demonstrated by President Basescu and his government is commendable. Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues in this action today, encouraging the Romanian authorities to provide equitable, prompt, and fair restitution of the confiscated properties.
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