The coin depicts the late Patriarch Miron Cristea, who led the Romanian Orthodox Church from 1925 to 1939 and was prime minister from 1938 to 1939. A commission set up by the National Bank to reconsider it said it was minted only as one of five to commemorate Romania's five patriarchs at the request of Romania's influential Orthodox Church.

The bank said in a statement that the set of coins were "decisively and intrinsically linked ....to an institution which had an essential role in defining and developing the national and cultural identity of Romania." The bank added it did not want "to transmit a xenophobic, racist or anti-Semitic message" with the collection.

Radu Ioanid, who runs the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's international archives in Washington, had called for the withdrawal of the coin commemorating Cristea. He was not immediately available for comment.

As prime minister, Cristea was responsible for revising the citizenship law, stripping about 225,000 Jews — or 37 percent of the Jewish population — of citizenship.