Unlike other Post-Communist countries, Romania
displays three clear individual-level trends related to
political and religious institutions. The Romanians are
the most supportive for the EU and Church, and the
most critical towards national political institutions in
the region. By conducting an empirical longitudinal
study on the Romanian population, we aim to
understand the linkages between these two trends and
to identify what can explain the high level of trust
vested by the Romanian citizens in the Orthodox
Church in the post-Communist period. In doing so, we
test two alternative explanations and we employ
bivariate and multivariate statistics. The results indicate
that there is weak evidence for the relationship
between trust in political and religious institutions,
with a stronger emphasis on the EU aspect. Whenever
the attitudes are linked, they are consistent: positive
attitudes towards the national government and
Parliament trigger positive attitudes towards the
Church
