THE ROMANO-HUNGARIAN CHURCH

The region beyond the Danube remained relatively mysterious to Classical civilization even during the zenith of the Roman Empire. The conquest of Dacia permanently imparted some measure of Roman civilization in the region, but for centuries it remained a major fixture of invasions from the east. Naturally, the Goths took passage through the region in antiquity, on the way to establishing their destiny in Roman Hispania. In turn they were followed by the Huns, the Gepids, the Lombards, the Bulgarians, and finally the Hungarians. While the work of Christian missionaries during this transient period is not to be underestimated, but has not left us with a large number of historical records. Stabilization would come to the region at the millennium with the baptism of the Hungarian king, who upon accepting the faith assumed that name Stephen. His acceptance of the Latin variety of the apostolic faith remains as a dominant feature of the Hungarian national character. However, connected to this would be the historic regions of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, all of which would be tied to the Hungarian crown, but maintained their political and ecclesiastical independence. The Romanian people would uphold their Romantic language, but become immersed into the Byzantine commonwealth, and maintain their allegiance to Constantinople. While influences by their neighbor to the West, the Romanian churches took on a more definitively Greek mantle.,