Romanians were introduced to Christianity during the period of Roman rule of Dacia. By the tenth century they were known to be following the Slavonic liturgy of the Eastern Christian Church. Old Church Slavonic remained the liturgical language until the late sixteenth century, when it began to be replaced by Romanian. During the period of Turkish rule in Walachia and Moldavia and of Hungarian rule in Transylvania, the Romanian Orthodox Church helped to maintain the national consciousness of the Romanian people and was active in their struggle to achieve national unity and independence (see ch. 2). The Turkish policy of religious tolerance enabled the church to thrive in Walachia and Moldavia; in Transylvania, however, a post-Reformation settlement between the Hungarian rulers and the various churches did not recognize the Romanian Orthodox Church as a legal denomination. In order to gain legal status and its accompanying freedoms and benefits, a major portion of Romanian Orthodox clergy and laymen in Transylvania agreed, in 1698, to accept the jurisdiction of the pope while retaining Orthodox liturgy and ritual. The resulting Uniate church was an important religious and political force in Transylvania until the communist government forced it to reunite with the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1948. As the church of the Romanian people in Transylvania, the Uniate church played a major role in their emancipation and eventual integration into a greater Romania. With over 1.6 million adherents in 1948, the Uniate church in Romania was the second largest and second most influential church in the country. Fearing and resenting the influence of the Roman Catholic pope with such a large number of its people, the communist regime decreed that the Uniates be merged with the Romanian Orthodox Church and disavow allegiance to the pope. Some Uniate clergy and laymen resisted and were persecuted and imprisoned. The pattern for the dissolution of the Uniate church was the same everywhere in Eastern Europe, and from 1946 to 1950 the Uniate congregations were absorbed into the various national Orthodox churches.