The Socialist Republic of Romania, ruled in early 1972 by Ceausescu and the PCR, comprised over 91,700 square miles and contained a population of more than 20.6 million. The size and shape of modern Romania is remarkably similar to the ancient country of Dacia, which was conquered by the Romans in the early second century A.D. and became a province of the Roman Empire. Although Roman occupation lasted only about 165 years, it is to the mixture of Roman legionnaires and colonists with indigenous Dacians that modern Romanians trace their origin. These Daco-Romans are almost absent from history's pages for several centuries, but Romanian historians state that they existed in the mountains, tending their flocks and fending off the vast migrations and avoiding absorption by invaders who used the territory as a crossroads into the Balkans or into Europe. After they did achieve some semblance of autonomy during the Middle Ages, primarily in the historic provinces of Moldavia and Walachia, they were always pressured by powerful empires that existed during various historic epochs, and a great portion of former Dacia, the province of Transylvania, was occupied by Magyars (Hungarians) and was not joined to Romania until after World War I. The great majority of the people are ethnic Romanians, although two sizable minority groups, Hungarian and German, still resided within Romania's borders in 1972. Other, much smaller, minority groups include Jews, Ukrainians, Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians, Czechs and Slovaks, Tatars, Turks, and Gypsies. Most of the lesser minorities have been assimilated to some degree, particularly in the use of the Romanian language in the conduct of their daily affairs. The Hungarians and the Germans, however, have resisted assimilation, and their education, business, and social lives are carried on in their native tongues. Their cultural traditions also reflect their Hungarian or German background rather than that of the country in which they live. The religious affiliations of the people follow very closely their ethnic differentiations. The vast majority of ethnic Romanians are members of the Romanian Orthodox Church, which is one of the autocephalous branches of the Eastern Orthodox church. The Romanian Orthodox Church was traditionally considered the state or national church, which, with its great size, gave it a favored position. Although its near-monopoly position was contested by Roman Catholics, Uniates, and several Protestant denominations, particularly after the post-World War I inclusion of Transylvania within Romania's borders, it still remained the predominant religion and was able to retain this position even after the communist takeover.