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# The Churches and the Romanians' Religious Unification

In terms of ethnicity and religious denomination, a certain balance had emerged between the country's social strata, but it did not survive the loss of statehood. Previously suppressed tensions now erupted, and the evolution of social relations took a new turn.

The most striking change was in the relative status of the various denominations. The Catholic church grew in importance and organization; Transylvania's Greek Orthodox episcopacy severed its eastern links to associate with the Roman Catholic Church and constitute a new, Transylvanian Greek Catholic Church. This change occurred in the span of a decade, amidst a fierce struggle that bore the impact of external influences and encompassed all social strata.

The Diploma Leopoldinum essentially endorsed the denominational pattern that had emerged over time in Transylvania and left it up to the four recognized religions to sort out their differences. {2-384.} Two changes were effected to accommodate the new political system: three seats were reserved for Catholics in each of the two governing institutions, and it was stipulated that if the churches failed to reach an accord, the emperor would impose a settlement based on the advice of the Gubernium.

At the time of the death of Transylvania's last prince, Protestants predominated in politics, and the principality was considered by other European countries to be a Protestant state. How-ever, official tolerance and the economic revival over the preceding three decades, allowed the Catholic Church to gaine in strength. There emerged a group of wealthy Catholic aristocrats, and, thanks to well-endowed foundations, the number of Catholic parishes, schools, and scholarships multiplied. Here and there, Jesuits were hard at work. The status of Catholics was enhanced thanks to the efforts of the treasurer, István Apor, and of other, politically-influential figures, notably Mihály Mikes, Sámuel Kálnoki, and István Haller. Initially, in early 1690, the Catholic and Protestant churches appeared ready to compromise over their differences. The Protestants offered 15,000 forints toward Catholic schools and churches, while the Catholics dropped their demand for restitution of church property. András Illyés, a native of Csík szék, had been appointed bishop of Transylvania, and when he took up residence in the country, he sent a memorandum to Rome outlining the political and religious situation. The report was suffused with Catholic universalism and a nationalistic spirit rooted in the country's history. Illyés made it clear that he shared the predisposition of the country's lay elite and intended to reorganize the Transylvanian bishopric in keeping with the traditions of the Hungarian kingdom and the interests of the Hungarian state.

In Vienna, the Transylvanian Council and the superiors of the Jesuits active in the former principality pursued a different objective. They wanted to shunt aside the Protestants, thus breaking the latter's grip on political power, and serve Habsburg interests by making Roman Catholicism the state religion.

{2-385.} Despite their divergent goals, the forces promoting restoration of Catholicism faced the same difficulties. They knew that the prospects of the Roman Church in Transylvania depended on the number of Catholics, and that the majority of Transylvanians, including the middle strata and the villeins, belonged to the Protestant and Greek Orthodox Church churches. The Hungarian, Székely, and Saxon Protestants constituted a huge and indivisible religious force. Potentially, the Greek Orthodox Transylvanians, who accounted for over a third of the population, could play a key role in this political and religious contest. By virtue of its mass base, the Greek Orthodox Church could determine the outcome of the tug of war between Protestants and Catholics, between the Catholic Status and Archbishop Leopold Kollonich's group, and between Habsburg court aristocrats and Transylvania's political elite of Hungarians, Székelys, and Saxons. It was this calculation that, in 1687, led the Jesuits to urge that the Habsburg government tie the Greek Orthodox population to Vienna by fusing their church with the Roman Catholic Church.

At the beginning of the 1690s, the Jesuit priest at Gyulafehérvár, László Baranyi Pál, initiated negotiations between Teofil, the Transylvanian vladika, and the Habsburg government. By then, the principality's Greek Orthodox episcopacy and its flock had acquired features that distinguished them from other branches of the multinational, Eastern rite church.

The attempts, dating back to the 16th century, to unify Protestants had produced little change in the social position of those who had converted. The integration of the Greek Orthodox Church into the principality's political system coincided with the loosening of feudal and social constraints and with the consolidation of central authority; this nationwide yet rather peripheral process reached a decisive stage only during Apafi's rule.

Transylvania's Greek Orthodox Church was distinguished by a dual dependency: although its bishop was ordained by the {2-386.} Metropolitan of Wallachia, he came under the supervision Calvinist bishop, and thus his appointment had to be ratified by the prince. The prince endorsed the establishment of Romanian schools as well as of printing houses that published Romanian books, and the resultant vernacular culture gave a distinctive identity to the Transylvanian branch of the Greek Orthodox Church. Apafi pursued his predecessors' policy of settling the financial and social status of the Greek Orthodox clergy and granted new exemptions. He also gave legal backing to ordinary ethnic Romanians, whether against Hungarian and Saxon landowners who had challenged the authority of the state, or against priests who abused of their flock. With the emergence of a Romanian commercial stratum and gentry, people of the Greek Orthodox faith came to participate in the definition of the state's economic policy. Bishop Száva Brankovics, who was related to the most influential councillor, László Székely, was given several diplomatic assignments. Transylvania's Greek Orthodox bishop was invited to attend the diet, although there is no evidence that he ever addressed that body.

Clearly, many Greek Orthodox people had made gains, and, like other Transylvanians, had reason to be anxious about a change in regime. In the event, that change greatly increased the tensions between Romanians of different social status in Transylvania. Earlier, reforms of the Transylvanian tax system had aimed to reduce or eliminate the exemptions enjoyed by the privileged strata. At the end of the principality's existence, Orthodox Romanian as well as Hungarian and Saxon clergymen had to pay taxes. How-ever, after 1687, there was a huge increase in the total state tax, and a redistribution of the burden had a crushing effect on villeins.

Rome's missionary campaign to retrieve Eastern rite believers had already spread over the Balkans and into countries where the Greek Orthodox Church was present. In 1692, Emperor Leopold's patent letter for Hungary gave a political and social impetus to religious union by granting feudal privileges to priests of the reunited {2-387.} Church. The dogmatic formula for unification was elaborated by two Hungarian Jesuits, Márton Szentiványi and Gábor Hevenesi; it rested less on theological premises than on acknowledgment of the Roman Pope's primacy. Bishop Teofil was thus led to declare, at the 1697 synod, that if priests of the Transylvanian Orthodox Church were granted economic and social privileges, he was ready to unite with the Roman Church. He insisted that the Greek Orthodox should enjoy the same rights as Roman Catholics, and should be not merely 'tolerated' but welcomed as adopted sons of the mother country (Nec habeantur uniti amplius ut tolerati, sed ut patriae filii recepti). Bishop Teofil was driven by the wish to preserve rights that seemed jeopardized by the end of Calvinist princely rule in Transylvania, and he even entertained hopes that Habsburg rule might bring financial, social, and political advancement to the Greek Orthodox.

Unexpectedly, Teofil died, and he was succeeded by the son of an ennobled, Transylvanian Romanian priest, Atanasie Anghel. The latter, who had studied at the college of Gyulafehérvár, prevailed in the episcopal election thanks to his father's wealth and the backing of the Calvinist Church. Anghel was ordained by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Metropolitan of Bucharest gave him considerable financial assistance in the hope the he would remain faithful to the Orthodox Church. Wallachia's voivode, Constantine Brîncoveanu, opposed union of the Greek Orthodox Church with any other Church as vehemently as did Transylvania's Calvinists and Lutherans.

Undeterred, Anghel accepted Vienna's proposal, and he did so all the more readily since it came with an offer of military protection. In early 1699, the emperor decreed that the former Greek Orthodox would have the same rights as Catholics. The following year, at a synod coinciding with a festive mass meeting, Anghel informed an assembly of 1,500 priests about the merger. The act of unification was completed by the ordination and pledge of allegiance {2-388.} of the new Greek Catholic Bishop in Vienna, and by his formal installation in Gyulafehérvár. A imperial decree, issued in 1701, outlined in fifteen points the legal status of the newly-founded Ecclesia Catholica graeci ritus unitorum, later to become known as the Greek Catholic Church. The first clause guaranteed rights identical to those of the Roman Catholic Church. Clause 2 confirmed that the Romanian priests enjoyed the privileges of nobles and were thus exempt from taxes and feudal services. Clause 3 laid down that the adherents of the Church, including commoners, were part of the Catholic 'estate' and enjoyed the same rights of citizenship as the members of other estates. Further, the decree provided for the establishment of a theological institution to serve the Greek Catholic bishop, and instructed the archbishop of Esztergom to appoint an auditor-general to assist the bishop. Finally, the decree made Greek Catholic priests eligible for Catholic scholarships, giving them access to higher education, and recommended the establishment of Romanian schools at Fogaras, Hátszeg and Gyulafehérvár.

The terms of unification bore the promise of major changes and opened new perspectives for the future of Transylvania's Romanian population; in the words of a Jesuit priest, 'Vienna raised the Romanians from their provincial insignificance and turned them into a political factor on the national scene'.[113]113. Nicolau Nilles, S.J., Symbolae ad illustrandam historiam Ecclesiae Orientali in terris coronae S. Stephani (Oeniponte, 1885), Vol. I, p. 168. However, Emperor Leopold delivered less than he had promised, for his several pronouncements were contradictory and offered concessions that were never put into practice. The Greek Catholic priests who, out of self-interest, had backed unification felt deceived by the imposition of an auditor-general to supervise their bishop. Moreover, the merger encountered virulent opposition in some strata of Transylvania's Romanian community. Under the leadership of Gábor Nagyszegi, the Romanian gentry and merchants in the districts of Brassó and Szeben promptly registered their protest and proceeded to found the 'Greek Orthodox Status'. When General {2-389.} Rabutin had Nagyszegi thrown in jail, the latter's followers became even more adamant in their demands. The attitude of those Greek Orthodox who had merged with the Protestants was reflected in the typical observation of a priest from Malomszeg: 'We are already associated with the Hungarian Calvinist clergy, and since they have never interfered in our religious affairs, we want to continue in this way.'[114]114. S. Dragomir, Istoria Desrobieri Religiorare a Romanilor din Ardeal in secolul XVIII (Sibiu, 1920-1930), Vol. I, p. 17.

The Gubernium and diet gave in to Vienna's pressures and ratified the merger in 1699, but they failed to suppress the multifaceted opposition that had emerged in various social circles. Much to the dismay of landowners, Romanian priests construed their noble status to extend to all their relatives, and many civilians claimed priestly status simply to escape feudal obligations. Previously, the Romanian clergy's share of the global tax and military levies had been paid by laymen who did not benefit from any exemption. Now, Romanian villeins invoked the emperor's promises to defy his tax collectors and soldiers. Far from settling political problems, the merger — which was, at least in part, a 'political manoeuvre' — made conditions more anarchic as Transylvania entered the 18th century.