Endeavours by the Romanian government to re-nationalise properties restituted to ecclesiastical organisations, including the Szekler Mikó College of Sfantu Gheorghe (Sepsiszentgyörgy) in Markó’s case, are unacceptable, he said.

In its sentence, a court of appeals in Ploiesti upheld part of an earlier ruling under which the Reformed Church would be stripped of the ownership of the restituted property.

In 2012, a lower court ruled that the college’s being restituted to the church by a three-strong body, including Markó, had been an “abuse (of authority) against public interest” and handed prison sentences to its members.

The first-instance ruling was met with an uproar by ethnic Hungarians in Romania, and seen as an attempt to strip churches of restituted properties.

The college, similarly to a multitude of other church estates, was confiscated under Romania’s communist regime.

Source www.hungarymatters.hu

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