Among the candidates for the seat of Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church there are priests who collaborated with the former Communist secret police, the Securitate, Mircea Dinescu, a member of the body studying the Securitate archives (CNSAS), said before a CNSAS meeting on Tuesday.

Dinescu affirmed that there are at least 3-4 priests whom he knows have collaborated with the Securitate structures.

CNSAS informed that the head of the Metropolitan Church for the region of Banat, Nicolae Corneanu and scholar Constantin Balaceanu Stolnici have collaborated with the secret police structures, Romanian news agency NewsIn reported on Tuesday.

According to Dinescu, some of the existent Securitate files on priests were burnt in order to protect their communist-era deeds in the December 1989 revolution.

CNSAS started verifying the files of the priests at the request of civil society organizations as the elections of the Patriarch are due on September 12. The elections are organized as the man who has ruled the Romanian Orthodox Church for 20 years, Patriarch Teoctist, died this summer.