The Avatars of Religious in the Romanian Media: The Mediated (Re)presentations of the Tanacu Case

Lecturer, PhD. Adriana ȘtefănelMA student Andreea Toma

The Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies, University of Bucharest

The Tanacu Case

• Irina Cornici, a 23 years old woman treated for schizophrenia, starve to death after being crucified in an exorcist ritual

• the priest who performed the ritual declared that the victim was in a demonic state

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October 2013

The mediated Tanacu case

• the media (re)presented every step of the trial;• several documentaries were produced in order to clarified

and explain the case; • a BBC journalist wrote two non-fictional novels; • a play -The Tanacu Confession - was staged in New York and

Paris;• in 2012, the movie Beyond the Hills won the Cannes’s best

screen-play & best female performance prizes

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

Mediated social representations

Social representation defined by

Serge Moscovici

Social representatio

n are grids for reading

reality

Media create an

environment

of fictions

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

Corpus of analysis

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

Research synthetic results

• Evenimentul Zilei presents the Tanacu case as an extraordinary one for the Romanian society but, paradoxically, as something natural within the Chuch;

• the two analyzed books change the stress from the secular-religious opposition to the inside of the religious;

• the film focuses strictly on Faith, highlighting its ubiquity and the tension between well-wishing and wrong-doing.

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

The Orthodox Church: bureaucratic

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

…finally get rid of an old man, if the scandal at Tanacu erupts. And it had to erupt, so that it could set an example for all the ancient men stiffened in the Synod, who considered they deserved their hierarchical positions! (CJ, p.36).

Communication through reports and

official statements

The Orthodox Church: struggling with internal conflicts

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

which played into the hands of a Masonic lodge that desired the loss of the Romanians’ national and religious identity (CJ, p.38), who had studied in Western universities (CJ, p.34), interested in science (CJ, p.34), led by Daniel Ciobotea, the young bishop, a lover of ecumenism, a dialogue between religions and religious diplomacy, who did not accept popular mysticism and disobedience (CJ, p.215).

old, broken bishops (CJ, p.36), ancient men stiffened in the Synod (CJ, p.36), decayed and full of political compromises they accepted under communism (CJ, p.35),

The young hierarchy

The communist hierarchy

The Orthodox Church:a weak connection with the congregation

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

mediated by coercive

institutions of the state

The villagers in Tanacu-Vaslui are supporting the monk and the four nuns (…) The Holy Trinity Monastery in Tanacu, Vaslui County, where a nun was crucified and let die, witnessed violent clashes yesterday between the monastery’s personnel and the congregation on the one side and the leaders of the Bishopric of Husi

The Orthodox Church:ecumenism

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

Old confessors would encourage new vocations, hoping that devout youth would stand against Western imports as regards faith and they would revive the Orthodox tradition, threatened by the bishops’ ecumenical tendencies. When the Metropolitan Daniel of Moldova ordered to receive Catholic monks in monasteries to celebrate common mass, the abbots and the congregations resist each in their own way (CJ, p.37)

ecumenism

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

The priest regards the West as a realm that has lost its whole faith that has nothing sacred anymore because everything is permitted in the name of freedom – seeing men with men, women with women, drugs everywhere, even the church is not the same, I am for tolerance, but up to a point.

The Orthodox faith: ancestral

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

Exorcism of evil spirits – a common practice in Romania

The scene where the abbess advises Voichiţa to ask the father to pray for her at Mass, to make her special prayers, and then perhaps, with God’s help, the evil one will go away. Moreover, she mentions the priest’s grace and considers him a savior: I think if the father tries, he will make it, he is full of grace, you know.

(minute 96)

The Orthodox faith: everywhere

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

In the psychiatrist who treats, there are three icons on the walls of his office (minute 53). He advises the same nun to take Alina to the church because she would rest better there and tells her to make her read from the Psaltery, it helps.

The secular space: mundane or imbued with the sacred?

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

Evenimentul Zilei is on the side of the sensible, critical thinking, placing the reader on the same side through its discourse, the side of blaming a religious person regarded as a remnant of other times, situated in the poor, rural space

In the two representation media the sacred emerges from the most mundane experiences.

Conclusions

• The Orthodox Church is presented as a bureaucratic and sensible institution with a well-established hierarchy, oriented towards itself, yet consumed with internal conflicts, and last but not least, an ecumenical institution

• The Orthodox monastic tradition, the popular religion, is organized more loosely, often challenging the superiors’ authority, united in its faith and deeply non-ecumenical, yet based on the spontaneous adhesion of the community members

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013

References

Curelaru, Mihai 2006Reprezentări sociale [Social representations] ed. Polirom, Iaşi

Deaux, Kay; Philogene, Gina 2001Representation of the Social: Bridging Theoretical Traditions ed.Blackwell Publishing

Drăgan Ioan 2007Comunicarea. Paradigme și teorii [Communication. Paradigms and Teories ed. Rao

Miege, Bernard 2000Societatea cucerită de comunicare [Society Conquered by Communication], Polirom, Iaşi

Moscovici,Serge; Buschini, Fabrice (coord) 2007

Metodologia ştiinţelor socioumane [Methodolody of social sciences], Polirom, Iaşi

Riviere, Claude 2000

Socio-antropologia religiilor [Socio-anthropolgy of religions] ed. Polirom, Iași

Stan, Lavinia; Turcescu, Lucian 2010

Religie si politica in Romania postcomunista [Religion and Politics in Postcommunist Roumania], ed. Curtea Veche, Bucuresti

Tismaneanu, Vladimir 1999

Fantasmele salvarii. Democratie, nationalism si mit in Europa post-comunista. [Fantasies of Salvation. Democracy, Nationalism and Myths in PostCommunist Europe] ed. Polirom, Iasi

Media and ReligionBucharest 11-12 October

2013