1 Leu Romanian Patriarchate

Issued to mark the centenary of the Romanian Patriarchate, established in 1925 when the Orthodox Church of Romania was elevated from a metropolitanate to a patriarchate following the country's post-WWI territorial expansion and the unification of regional Orthodox jurisdictions under a single primate. The first Patriarch, Miron Cristea, would later serve simultaneously as Prime Minister during the royal dictatorship of Carol II — an unusual conflation of ecclesiastical and civil authority that remains historically awkward for the institution.