Румын православиесінің рухани көшбасшысы және премьер-министрі Мирон Кристя

Romanian Orthodox patriarch and prime minister

Miron Cristea (; monastic name of Elie Cristea ; 20 July 1868 – 6 March 1939) a peasant family, he studied at the Saxon Evangelical Gymnasium of Bistrița (1879–1883), at the Greek Catholic Lyceum of Năsăud (1883–1887), at the Orthodox Seminary of Sibiu (1887–1890), after which he became a teacher and principal at the Romanian Orthodox school of Orăștie (1890–1891). Cristea then studied philosophy and modern philology at the University of Budapest (1891–1895), where he was awarded a doctorate in 1895 – with a dissertation about the life and works of Mihai Eminescu (given in Hungarian). he became an archbishop in 1919. Towards the end of World War I, on 18 October 1918, the Central National Romanian Central Council was formed, an organization which fought for the union of Transylvania and Romania. On 21 November, Cristea, as archbishop of Caransebeș joined the organization and recognized it as the only ruling body of the Romanian nation in Transylvania. On 1 December, he was (with Vasile Goldiș, Iuliu Hossu, and Alexandru Vaida Voevod) a member of Austro Hungarian Romanian delegation that called for the unification of Romania and Transylvania. On 28 May 1919, the King and government of Romania went to the grave of Michael the Brave in Câmpia Turzii and Bishop Cristea lead the religious service of commemoration and held a nationalist speech in which he drew a parallel between King Ferdinand I and Michael the Brave and recommended the King to not stop at Turda, but continuing all the way to the Tisa River.

In a bid for political unity against the Iron Guard, which was gaining popularity, on 10 February 1938, Carol dismissed the government of Prime Minister Octavian Goga and seized emergency powers. He suspended the constitution, suspended all political activity, and ruled by decree. Cristea was named Prime Minister on 11 February 1938. He headed a government that included seven former prime ministers and members of all major parties except for Codreanu's Iron Guard and Goga's Lăncieri, which had violently clashed. Time magazine described him as a "puppet Premier" of Carol II, whereas historian Joseph Rothschild considered that it was Cristea's vice prime minister, Armand Călinescu, who held the power in the Cristea government. In his inaugural speech, Cristea denounced liberal pluralism, arguing that "the monster with 29 electoral heads was destroyed" (referring to the 29 political parties which were to be banned) and claiming that the king shall bring salvation. The new government stopped the antisemitic violence that was unleashed under Goga's rule, but the antisemitic legislation in place was not altered, as Nichifor Crainic's racist, fascist ideology fit comfortably with the social views and political theology of the Romanian Orthodox Church. The external politics of the Cristea government were based on seeking an alliance with the United Kingdom and France, away from the friendship with the Berlin Rome Axis supported by the Goga government. Among the policies Cristea introduced during his rule as Prime Minister was a crackdown on the Protestant minority, by disallowing religious service to small congregations with less than 100 heads of families, basically banning the services in around 1500 small chapels belonging to various non Orthodox Christian denominations. Four days later, on 24 February, the constitution was approved, with 99.87% of votes for, through a plebiscite, described by a contemporary article in The Manchester Guardian as a "farse" for its lack of vote secrecy and the lack of information given to rural voters
Upon the approval of the new constitution, Cristea's government resigned on 30 March. He formed a new government later that day. The new government banned all political parties, their activity being only suspended before that. In March 1938, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the leader of the Iron Guard, attacked in a letter the politicians who supported Carol II, including Prime Minister Cristea and members of his government. Codreanu was arrested for slander against Nicolae Iorga and killed "while attempting to escape". On 1 January 1939; Cristea's government visited the Royal Palace wearing uniforms. When they met Carol, Cristea and the ministers greeted him with the Fascist salute.

His health deteriorated in January 1939, suffering from two heart attacks, which prompted his doctors to recommend him to stay in a warmer place for a few months, in order to avoid the harsher Romanian winter. On 24 February 1939, Cristea arrived in Cannes, France, but contracted pneumonia while waiting for his niece in the Nice railway station. He stayed in Cannes for treatment, but died two weeks later, on 6 March, of bronchopneumonia complicated by heart disease. A week later, on 14 March, funeral services were held in Bucharest, Cristea being buried in the Patriarchal Cathedral.

As he became the head of the Orthodox Church in Greater Romania, a multiethnic and multireligious state, Cristea feared that the ethnic minorities, as well as Romanians belonging to non Orthodox creeds such as the Greek Catholicism and the Jews would challenge the privileged status which the Orthodox Church had in pre World War I Romania. Cristea strongly opposed the idea of a Concordat with the Vatican and the Romanian Orthodox Church issued a statement against it saying that "the treaty subordinates the interests of the country and the sovereignty of the state to a foreign power". The Romanian Senate ratified it anyway on 26 May 1929, and Cristea, as a member of the regency, was forced to sign it. After Cristea introduced reforms such as switching to the Gregorian calendar, the Old Calendar Romanian Orthodox Church, led by Glicherie Tănase seceded many parishes from the Orthodox Church and by 1936 they had built more than 40 churches. However, after 1935, the Romanian government began to suppress any opposition to the Orthodox Church and the churches were razed and some of the activists the imprisoned, while a number of clerics, including hieromonk Pambo and five monks from the Old Calendarist Cucova Monastery, were beaten to death. Protests against the authorities' actions were met with repression by police and the leader of Old Calendarists, Tănase, was accused of being an instigator and sentenced to death.