Pope Francis, who celebrated Sunday's mass at the Liberty Field in Blaj winding up a three-day visit to Romania, beatified seven Greco-Catholic bishops tortured in the early days of the old Communist regimeBLAJ (ROMANIA) - Pope Francis on Sunday beatified seven Greco-Catholic bishops jailed and tortured during the Communist era on the final day of his visit to Romania. Regime officials detained the beatified bishops overnight on October 28, 1948, accusing them of "high treason" after they refused to convert to Orthodoxy. - Buried in secret -The bishops died of maltreatment, some still in jail, others in confinement in an Orthodox monastery. Under a 1948 decree formally abolishing the Eastern Catholic churches, Greco-Catholics were forcibly obliged to return to the Orthodox fold. Complicit in 1948, Romania's Orthodox Church would itself face repression under the Communists -- albeit some senior prelates did collaborate with the party.

Source: Bangkok Post June 02, 2019 11:26 UTC