ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the reception of Inochentism in the Romanian state following Bessarabia’s integration into Greater Romania at the end of the First World War. In this new context, Inochentism was incorporated into the Orthodox Church’s sectology and became subject to the regulatory regime of the Romanian state in its attempt to control the religious field using legal instruments and repressive measures. Although ideologically poles apart, Greater Romania and the Soviet Union both had an interest in taking firm control of the religious sphere; Inochentism would prove problematic for both. In the first few years following Inochentie’s death, the movement in Romania would be transformed from an open mass movement, centred on the community at Garden of Paradise, into a classic underground network of hidden or secretive groups, separated by borders and fractured due to the loss if its spiritual leader. In this period, the term “Inochentism” took on new meanings, evoking negative associations and provoking repressive and violent measures on the part of the Romanian state.
