Source: http://www.mariamihaelastan.ro/2016/12/21/andrei-saguna-and-the-organic-statute-iii-2-the-neoabsolutist-era-18491851-1860/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:52:46+00:00

Document:
The revolutionary wave of 1848-1849 placed the empire before some new and complicated matters, which set its life in danger. Special measures were requested to save the current situation.
First of these measures was the Stadion Constitution of 4 March 1849, which aimed at tempering the revolutionary claims by granting rights, a pacifying act which has never been turned into practice, being even denounced by the emperor, by the New Year Eve Patent of 1851. “The equal justice for all peoples, a foundation of this Constitution, will be soon an equal lack of rights for those who fought against the emperor and for those who sacrificed for him.” The Ministry of Vienna finally considered that the Constitution worked out in haste would not fit the circumstances in which the monarchy was, and so it was revoked with the purpose to give the emperor the absolute monarchic power.
The second measure taken was the military terror. From the point of view of Vienna, Hungary had lost its character as a distinct state and its former self-government, by the abrogation of the April Laws, on October 3, 1848, and by the “decreed” Constitution of 4 March 1849. Consequently, in Hungary was instituted the military dictatorship until the fall of 1850, when the new civil administration emerged. By a proclamation of July 1849, Count Julius Jakob Haynau, the Austrian military and civil commander of Hungary and Transylvania strengthened the validity of the state of siege, which had been proclaimed in September 1848 and was fully annulled only in December 1854. The proclamation stipulated the judgment of those involved in revolutionary actions by the state courts. The state of siege materialized by a lot of executions, sentences to prison or forced labour, being characterized by an atmosphere of confusion and terror among the people. On September 1849, Haynau ordered all the participants in the revolution to come voluntarily before the military courts, so that trials against them start. They might have ended by acquittal, but also by capital sentence; all in all, 2,000 people were monitored. The first executions began in the autumn of 1849, with Prime Minister Lajos Batthyány in Pest and thirteen generals in Arad.
Third, the military terror – ended by Count Haynau’s resigning and vanish from the political stage in 1850 – was replaced by a repressive administrative system coordinated, after the death of the Prime Minister Felix Schwarzenberg, on April 1852, by Baron Alexander von Bach – the minister of the interior from 1849 to 1859 – whose name was used to define the entire period.
The new Neoabsolutist régime had all the features of an occupation régime, by the authoritative measures taken and by the maintenance, at the beginning, of the state of siege enacted during the conflicts. Based on a policy of administrative division, of implementation of some new administrative and legal structures, Transylvania had in a way a statute of conquered (or re-conquered) territory, where the Austrian Monarchy, using the influence obtained on the battlefield, inaugurated its rule. Although the revolution and its consequences led to the destruction of the feudal supremacy of the estates (Magyars, Szeklers and Saxons), the situation of the Romanians as compared to the privileged nations did not improve too much. Transylvania was divided into ten administrative districts, sub-divided into seventy-nine “circles” and six urban municipalities. A great number of Romanians were included into regions with a Magyar, Szekler or Saxon majority, or within the borders of Serbian Vojvodina. In southern Transylvania, Romanian communities which had never been under Saxon jurisdiction were incorporated in Sibiu region, preponderantly Saxon. The nucleus of the administrative system was “the circle”, in which the highest degree of centralization was achieved. It was led by a prefect, to whom the other officials submitted: political administrators, judges, the civil servants who picked up the taxes, even lawyers and doctors. The legal system ignored the principle often proclaimed of equality of nationalities. On August 1849, senates or high courts of justice were set up for Magyars and Saxons, but not for Romanians. The majority of the positions in the administration were held by the Austrians or civil servants brought from Bohemia, Moravia, Bukovina and Galicia, resulting that in many regions the officials could not speak the language of the population they were supposed to govern. In the central administration of Transylvania three Romanians were working only: two school inspectors, one for the Greek Catholics and one for the Orthodox, and a translator for the Official Gazette. There was no Romanian holding an important position at the State Treasury, which dealt with the financial issues in the principality. All the official documents and the correspondence had to be made in German.
At the Orthodox Church level, the only change was the nomination of the metropolitan of Karlowitz as Serbian patriarch and voivode, by the imperial decision of December 15, 1848. After that, the patriarch fought for recognition of the Serbian language as an official language in the political affairs of the Austrian state.
As far as the Transylvanian bishop was concerned, for him “the revolution had been nothing less than a catastrophe; it had swept away the modest reforms he had introduced as vicar and obliged him now to begin all over again with greater handicaps than before.” Although he gave up the hopes to achieve the political goals the Romanians had followed during the revolution – especially the national and church autonomy -, the bishop waited from the Court and particularly from the new government of Transylvania to treat the Romanian nation and the Orthodox Church as full partners in the Transylvanian society. But the Saxons as well as the Magyars, in spite of their lack of loyalty to the House of Habsburg, were treated preferentially under the new régime, while the Romanians were treated as rebels.
In Andrei Şaguna’s opinion, now, that the civil war and the revolution were over “it is out of question to reintroduce the old system in Transylvania”; but he still had a doubt: “I wonder if at the performance of the new edifice could not be taken some of the old, worn out material?” So he presented a memorandum to the Ministry, on July 22, 1850. By showing the feudal system and the old constitution – Diploma Leopoldinum of 1691 – of the three nations and four accredited confessions, on which the legal system was founded, he asked for the right assessment of the Romanians in the new division system of the country (the Saxons had already been privileged) and he made reference to all the political issues of the country: the official language, the public high officials, the military border, the Church, equal respect for the confessions.
The conflicts and sufferings Bishop Andrei Şaguna had gone through, during this régime, became proverbial. He was attacked from three directions simultaneously: the absolutist ultramontanist régime; the Greek Catholic Church headed by Bishop Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu; the Serbian hierarchy headed by Patriarch Josip Rajačić.
The political administrative newly created context brought about meetings of protest of the Romanians, both in towns and villages. In some regions near Arad, for example, rebellions broke out because the peasants refused to obey the new civil servants. As a matter of fact, during the last military operations against the Magyars in the summer of 1849, the Austrian authority began to treat the Romanian army made up of peasants, as well as the officers, as potential enemies.
In February 1850 the same governor called the Orthodox bishop to account for use the title “Romanian eparchial bishop of the Eastern Church of Transylvania”, since his predecessor was called “Greek not-Uniate bishop”. Andrei Şaguna’s firm answer did not let itself waited: “The word ‘not-Uniate’ as a negative concept, cannot be attached to my confession which is a positive institution.” More than a decade will pass until the Austrian authorities will have officially eliminated the discriminating denomination “not-Uniate” used for the Orthodox.
The restrictive political régime reached ridiculous dimensions: “The women from Braşov, having founded a charitable society, were denounced to the town captain and summoned twice to obey, which put out Şaguna and made him protest.” The denounciations, the mal-treatings and oppressions suffered by the Romanians from the part of the military government and its bodies were hard to imagine: a commissary from Deva beated a Romanian peasant with a bull’s puzzle until the poor man, frightened threw himself into the river Mureş; another one, from Baia de Criş, tied a peasant to his cart and dragged him just like that. “Here in Deva I found the county prisons full of Romanians, sentenced after the revolution of 1848/9.” The bishop was not indifferent to these cruelties, but he protested before the governor, threatening that he will let higher instances know about the abuses committed. Finally, unsatisfied with the solution pronounced by the governor in one of these cases, namely the transfer of the commissary from Baia de Criş to Alba-Iulia, Andrei Şaguna addressed to the government of Vienna, during his stay at the conference of the Orthodox bishops of the monarchy, from 1850-1851. The consequence came: Governor Wohlgemuth was called to Vienna, but he died on the way, in Pest.
His successor was Prince Karl Schwarzenberg, an admirer of the Orthodox bishop in whose company he often spent his spare free time, who “demonstrated for all, high and low, a human and noble treatment”.
The years of the revolution and the pro-monarchy military-political actions had brought the Romanian leaders of Transylvania to bankruptcy, and in order to solve the situation they appealed the Orthodox bishop, who in 1852 obtained with Governor Schwarzenberg’s help 24,000 florins from the emperor, that was to cover the debts of three of the revolutionaries, among whom Avram Iancu.
Thus was born the appeal against the Minister Thun, of December 1, 1855, addressed to the emperor. Although in full swing of the absolutist time, the bishop did not lose his temper, but has tried to obtain by all the legal means the implementation de facto of the rights and liberties of his Church that he has considered already recognized de jure .
The complaint, a summary of all the dissatisfactions gathered for centuries, is a self-evident sample of Şaguna’s spirit: precision, clarity, logic, depth, erudite argument. Although quite long (thirty printed pages), it is well structured along nine chapters which treat distinct issues, the main stumbling stones of the Neoabsolutist years: the position of the Orthodox Church of Transylvania toward the state and the other confessions; the depreciating name “not-Uniate” used to call this Church and its faithful; the issue of mixed marriages; the changing of the confession; the eparchial seminary; the parishes and their organization and the use of the Orthodox Church’s funds; the problem of the metropolitanate; the eparchial consistory.
The argument displays successively in a growing order, so that the key matter – the old Metropolitanate of Alba-Iulia – is treated in the last chapter, bearing protesting accents. The fact that after the revolution, despite that they had fought together to maintain the monarchy, the Romanians had been divided according to the religious criterion by the monarchy itself, by the setting up of a Greek Catholic Metropolitanate which had never existed, yet constantly refusing the reestablishment of the former Orthodox Metropolitanate of Alba-Iulia, created to Bishop Andrei great bitterness. He was seized with the highest indignation because the new Greek Catholic archbishop “had entitled himself metropolitan of Alba-Iulia and let the Romanian nation know (because he likes to speak to the nation, not to his faithful), that the old Metropolitanate the Romanians once had was restored.” He did not hesitate to express his indignation directly to the emperor. After having exposed the outspoken proselytism by involving the emperor’s name itself: “and the issue is presented in such a way as if the emperor’s wish and will is that the Romanians should proceed to the Union”’, Bishop Andrei concluded: “I would break the permanent rights of our Church, if as a bishop I would not speak my mind freely and openly. Our Orthodox Church was the oldest in the country; the tradition and history, monuments and documents which cannot be wiped out give testimony about the fact that in Transylvania there have been Orthodox episcopal sees, united by the church hierarchy under the Metropolitanate of Alba Iulia. […] The Archbishop [Atanasie Anghel] and all of those passed with him have personally passed [to the Uniate Church], not because they were assigned or empowered by the Church to do so […]. As a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church who would deny his faith, he could not officially carry along with him to the other Church the service, dignity and rights of his diocese, likewise we must think and consider this matter within the Orthodox Church, as long as any divine and human right rules over the earth.
Although Bishop Andrei Şaguna’s claims were justified and thoroughly argued, they have never been solved in the Neoabsolutist era, in spite of his insistences.
On Minister Thun’s suggestion, on December 14, 1856, the State Council (Reichsrat) analyzing the whole controversy with the Court’s authorities concerning the discriminated denomination “not-Uniate” given to the Orthodox, decided to put off taking a decision, a fact which lasted up to the years which followed the Neoabsolutism.
The efforts to obtain the control over the church properties were in vain, also. There had been four settlements all in all, assessed an income of about 130,000 florins, out of which Bishop Andrei wanted to use a part for his educational projects. The Orthodox was never been allowed to handle these funds. Before 1849 Transylvania’s Treasury, later the Ministry of Public Worship decided every year the way this money should be spent.
Another consequence of the failure of the revolution – when the Romanians united under the banner of nationality had forgotten about confessional misunderstandings – was the political manipulation of the peaceful religious climate, namely the disturbing of it, in order to maintain intact the authority of the Court: the Romanian Greek Catholics were favoured once more, in prejudice of the Romanian Orthodox. By an imperial rescript of December 12, 1850, the Greek Catholics “were built” a metropolitanate which had never existed in history, “while the reestablishment of the Orthodox Metropolitanate was cancelled for other times and régimes”.
Concerning the tense relationships between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics, these were cultivated at the beginning of Neoabsolutism by the Viennese politicians especially by continuing the policy of propaganda for church Union.
In spite of his official protests against the Greek Catholic offensive, Bishop Andrei urged the faithful to keep the peace, to be patient, by his decisions related to inter-confessional aspects wanting that “neither brotherhood, nor justice be harm. […] He did not attack anybody if he was not provoked and many times he remained passive, when necessary for the common good. One might say, on the contrary, that nobody respected more the foreign confessions than Şaguna himself. There were Greek Catholics or men belonging to other confessions, whom his Romanian, noble heart respected a lot.” But “when compelled by circumstances, when he considered to defend the prestige, the honour or any other common imperious interest of the Church, he answered either by pastoral letters addressed to his faithful, or by brochures and the press.” Such an incisive pastoral letter, “more than severely criticized”, was the one delivered on December 5, 1855.
In the same spirit of the supported confessional “war”, the Orthodox bishop was accused at the Ministry, in 1855, that he published church books infringing the privilege of the printing house of the Greek Catholic Seminary of Blaj; this, under the circumstances when the absolutist government had wiped a great number of feudal privileges, among which the one of printing, strictly limited until 1848. In 1857 the Greek Catholic metropolitan claimed the government the monopoly of printing and censorship of the Orthodox Church’s books.
Of course, the new Concordat of 1855 between the Viennese Court and Vatican had something in common with such attitudes of supremacy of the Greek Catholics.
During Neoabsolutism even “The Transylvania’s Gazette” from Braşov – for which the Orthodox bishop had insisted before the government of Transylvania, in 1850, so that it could be issued again – was seized by the spirit of proselytism, and “from time to time it did not miss the opportunity to give to Şaguna a blow, rapped into snoring words and phrases”. As a result of the journalistic space offered to several of Greek Catholic Metropolitan Şuluţiu’s writings with a proselytist, even a provocative tint, as well as owing to other blunders of this magazine, Bishop Andrei felt obliged to clear things up, and after the verbal intervention before the governor he received the latter’s consent to write a clarifying circular letter addressed to his clergy and parishioners. He recommended by a pastoral letter to Orthodox do not buy these magazines any more, nor read them, because “they spoil and harm and destroy our souls” . Later, he addressed to the Metropolitanate of Karlowitz and Eparchy of Werschetz in order to stop the delivery of “The Transylvania’s Gazette” among the Orthodox Romanian in Banat, sustaining instead it the spreading of “The Romanian Telegraph”.
Bishop Andrei knew very well that the political factor was the one which orchestrated and manipulated the confessional diversity in post-revolutionary Transylvania: “the tendencies of supremacy of Blaj – which Blaj would not have dared provoke to our Church, had they not be encouraged by Esztergom and Vienna …” Out of this conviction that the Greek Catholics were tools in the hands of absolutist policy, which by different measures exercised pressure among the Orthodox in order to accept the church Union, cumulated with the tragic reality that the Orthodoxy was not recognized as a confession having equal rights with the other confessions, resulted his firm attitudes concerning the interdiction of the confessional interference, especially in the space of church services; but when confessional village schools were set up, he admitted exceptions concerning the common schools with the Greek Catholics, only if there was no way out.
Bishop Andrei proposed himself from the very beginning to accomplish his main purposes – to eliminate all the ambiguities concerning the statute of his Church within state, and also related to the Metropolitanate of Karlowitz – together with and supported by the entire body of Church. Thus, he planned still in 1848 to start the organization of his eparchy on synodal foundations, wishing to summon, in September 1848, a synod made up of priests and lay people, at Sibiu. But the revolution and the civil war in Transylvania prevented the accomplishing of this project.
Following the disposition of the governor concerning the nomination of the participants, Bishop Andrei convoked twenty-five protopopes, two theology teachers and thirty laymen; there were present forty-four deputies – twenty-four clergymen and twenty laymen. “The circumstance that Şaguna tried in 1848, and achieved successfully in 1850, to summon and hold a synod made up of clergy and laymen shows plainly that he was not in favour of ‘the despotic Serbian form’, but he was fighting for the introduction of the synodal constitution in our Church.” In the opening speech of the synod the bishop motivated his deeds theological and canonical: “Penetrated by the holiness of our Church on the one hand, and wanted to prove my tight keeping of the Church canons on the other hand, I found necessary to call this [mixed] synod, so that the endeavour of my ministry be much more safe and well made …” The Serbian clericalism he had known for almost two decades did not impress him positively, on the contrary.
During the meetings of the synod different topics were approached: the freedom and equal rights for the Romanian Church and nation, including the replacement of the negative denomination “not-Uniate Greeks” with “Eastern Greeks”; the restoration and autonomy of the old Orthodox Metropolitanate; the legal position of the Church within state; the improvement of the material condition of the priests and teachers; the access of the young Romanians to education and study; the administration of the eparchial funds by the eparchial committee, not by the state. At the end of the synod’s sessions all the discussed issues were conveyed to the emperor, by a petition.
A success of the synod was the decision of taking over by the Orthodox protopopes of the leadership and the inspectorate of the Romanian Orthodox schools of Transylvania, because since 1838 the government overrode the Bishop Vasile Moga the right to inspect those schools, granting it to the Roman Catholic Magyar bishop of Alba-Iulia. It was also established the foundation of the Theological-Pedagogical Institute of Sibiu, a thing which allowed the graduates in theology to work as teachers before the consecration as priests, a thing respected in the entire Orthodox Church of Transylvania until 1918.
The synod was followed by concrete steps taken by the bishop to organize the eparchy and its main institutions – the consistory and the seminary -, to assure the financial support for these institutions and for the clergy from the state budget. There were also interventions before the government meant to clear up the situation of the priests arrested during the revolution, the slanders and denouncements cast upon them and upon the Orthodox Church, as well as the inter-confessional conversions and reversions.
Some months later, in July 1850, a similar mixed eparchial synod, made up of nineteen priests and seven laymen, was organized by Bishop Gherasim Raţ of Arad. The synod sent a petition to the emperor, applying for the reestablishment of the old Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate.
It is important to point out the skilful way in which Bishop Andrei Şaguna “tore” from the Governor Ludwig Wohlgemuth, who was hostile to bishop, the permission to organize this synod, when the country was under the state of siege, under military régime, all forms of public meetings being forbidden. Within a context in which the governor expressed his dissatisfaction with the unjustified prolongation of the Saxon University session, the bishop suggested him that an efficient way of “paralyzing” the Saxons would be the convocation of an Orthodox eparchial synod. The bishop’s wisdom to use the proper moment led to the revival of synodality – as an irony – even at the beginning of the Neoabsolutist era.
The issue of the rights of the Transylvanian Eparchy and of the Orthodox Romanians of the monarchy, in general, made the subject of many of Andrei Şaguna’s interventions during the conference of the Orthodox bishops of the Austrian Monarchy, which took place at Vienna, between October 15, 1850, and July 2, 1851.
At the true date the conference was displaying, on November 18, 1850, at the Ministry of the Interior of Vienna took place a meeting, between the Primate of Hungary, the Greek Catholic bishop of Transylvania, the minister of the interior Baron Alexander von Bach and the minister of religions and education Count Leo Thun; there “it was decided the establishment of new Greek Catholic dioceses at Lugoj and Gherla and the establishment of the Greek Catholic Metropolitanate of Alba-Iulia”. Realizing that the Orthodox Church of Banat was mainly in danger in such a favourable context for the Uniates, “because there our brothers in faith and nationality were very dissatisfied with their Serbian bishops”, Bishop Andrei Şaguna drew attention of the conference on the new Greek Catholic bishopric of Lugoj, “but the brothers belonging to the same confession, but not to the same nationality [the Serbian bishops] remained insensitive at the voice of the Church, and stoned on their material interests”.
Moreover, as it comes out of a private letter of 1856, Bishop Andrei understood, on the occasion of this conference, that the canon law was unknown or at least not respected by the Orthodox bishops of the monarchy: “The news that all the bishops will meet at Karlowitz to talk about the [church] organization bothers me, because when we met in 1850/1, I realized that there were few who knew the canons of our Church, that many took into consideration their private interest rather than the public one, that out of pride many wished to show off that they were wise, but then they became blind because of their evil goal. Believe me, the hierarchy does not lack new things, neither Platon’s awkward ideas, but the Church, the hierarchs, priests and faithful lack a sense of duty, because the Holy Fathers gave the laws in everything, what is left to us is to know and to carry them out.” This was another reason to fight for setting his eparchy on clear canonical foundations.
At the beginning of 1857, the bishop fell seriously ill, he lay in bed more than two months and this prevented him from going personally to Oradea Mare, to bless the emperor and the empress, who visited Hungary in that year.
The greatest and most painful struggles of Bishop Andrei Şaguna during the Neoabsolutist era were those against the Serbian hierarchy of Karlowitz, on the topic of the reestablishment of the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Transylvania.
Bishop Andrei made the first steps in this respect immediately after the revolution.
So in 1849, while he was the leader of the second Romanian delegation to Olmütz, where the Court had taken refuge, he was writing to Metropolitan Josip Rajačić, his former protector about his wish “to be recognized the ecclesiastical and political independence of the Romanian nation”. First he reassured the metropolitan that “in this enterprise of mine, the main goal of my work is the future harmony among Christians and bishops who speak different languages, but who belong to the same Orthodox Eastern Church of the Austrian territories”. Then he expressed his sureness that “the independence of the Romanian hierarchy from the Serbian one is the only means which could bring Christian love and brotherly understanding, instead of the old hatred and mutual conflict between these two nations”.
In spite of these, the letter irritated Rajačić and instead to be the start of the reestablishment of the Metropolitanate of Transylvania, it was the beginning of a disaster in the relationships between the Romanian bishop and the Serbian metropolitan.
In the spring of 1849, Bishop Andrei Şaguna was printing at Vienna the brochure “Pro-Memory” (“Promemorie”), arguing the historical right of the Romanians in Transylvania to have a metropolitanate independent from the Serbian one. In 1850, “Pro-Memory” was completed with the “Addendum to Pro-Memory” (“Adaosu la Promemoria”), and on April 20, 1851, during the conference of the Orthodox bishops, a “Memorial” (“Memorialu”) on the same topic was addressed to the Ministry of Public Worship.
Another conflict with the Serbian patriarch was the one of 1852, at the synod of bishops in Karlowitz, summoned for the filling of the vacant episcopal sees of Timişoara, Arad, Buda and Werschetz. Although Andrei Şaguna joined the synod by a special imperial order, he was rejected by the Serbian hierarchy: “My presence in the synod was for the Serbian bishops a bone in their throat and they turned me out of the synod saying that I was not elected by a synod, but by representatives of our clergy of Transylvania, and they could approve my presence there only when His Majesty would guarantee that my successors will be elected by the synod [of bishops], not by the clergy.” Thus, he had to come back to his country and protest before the emperor.
At this synod, the patriarch made reproaches to Bishop Andrei Şaguna for his former personally insistences near the Archduke Ludwig, Prince Metternich and Count Kollovrat and also near the chancellor of Transylvania, related to Şaguna’s appointment as a vicar, then as a bishop. The bishop answered with intelligence and honesty: “You know that I have always been a friend of Your Excellency, but here the rights of the Church are debated and I cannot and I dare not sacrifice them.” Actually, in spite of the fiery controversies concerning the Orthodox Church’s organization within the monarchy, Bishop Andrei kept as civilized and respectful relationship as possible with the Patriarch Josep Rajačić, such as their correspondence proves.
The culmination of the conflict with Patriarch Rajačić was in 1860, in the Enlarged Imperial Senate of Vienna, when the organizational issues of the Orthodox Church in the monarchy were also debated. The patriarch insisted, of course, on maintaining the Serbian control and total subordination of the three autonomous eparchies: Bukovina, Dalmatia and Transylvania. He petitioned the emperor on this matter; on August 21, 1860, it followed a contra-petition in the name of Romanians led by Andrei Şaguna, personally presented to the emperor. Out of these, a long series of polemics came out in the Viennese, Serbian and even the Hungarian press, which did not stop until the reestablishment of the Romanian Metropolitanate.
If in the beginning Bishop Eugeniu Hacman of Bukovina agreed with the organizational formula proposed by Bishop Andrei Şaguna, later, taken away by the idea to be a metropolitan himself and taking advantage of the not very clean relationship he used to have with the Court, he neglected the desire expressed by the lay representatives of Bukovina and opposed to the incorporation of the Eparchy of Bukovina in the Metropolitanate of Transylvania; in 1873 he will obtain the political consent to establish a new metropolitanate, that of Bukovina and Dalmatia, for himself. Out of this change of attitude of the bishop of Bukovina followed a new series of accusations against Andrei Şaguna.
Another priority in order to sustain the progress of the clergy was to consolidate the ecclesiastical infrastructure. The main obstacle of this programme was the lack of material resources, which were almost non-existent. Moreover, the post-revolutionary picture was worse than the one he had found on his arrival in Transylvania: “within the last two bloody years, forty churches were burnt, three hundred and fifteen were robbed and one pulled down to the ground.” The properties of the Orthodox Church were missing, the funds available for the eparchy too and Transylvania’s Treasury did not feel obligated to account for the few assets of the Church, the bishop’s salary could hardly cover the bare necessities, there were not benefactors toward his Church, among the authorities.
The bishop acted in two directions to partly solve the critical lack of financial resources: petitions to the régime and appeals to the faithful.
The state funding was necessary, but as long as the government of Cluj and the Court of Vienna remained indifferent or even hostile toward the Orthodox Church in Transylvania, the progress was impossible. “The un-dissimulated pragmatism of the hierarch, fed by his quality as an observer of his time, made him to give importance to the role of the state in accomplishing the desiderata he had as a church leader.” In the decade of the Neoabsolutism he was greatly concerned with this aspect.
In 1849 he asked the Ministry of Public Worship an annual subsidy of 200,000 florins for ten years, which should make a Fund in order to support the priests.
Then the official documents on this topic multiplied. An intervention concerning the endowment of the priests was occurred on January 1/13, 1850, to the imperial Commissary Eduard Bach of Transylvania, whom he asked, based on the principle of equality of all confessions in the state: financial support for endowment of the bishop, of the consistorial staff, of the seminary, of the cathedral, of the bishop’s residence, of the priests and teachers of the eparchy, even of the cantors; the returning of the eparchial funds which were administrated by the state, in the administration of the eparchy.
In 1850, on Bishop Andrei’s demand the governor of Transylvania exonerated the priests, the confessional teachers and the cantors from public and communal burdens. In November 1850 the bishop presented in detail the issue of endowment of the priests to the Minister Alexander Bach.
In 1854 the government decided canonical portions for the Orthodox priests, but “from this decision on principle to turning it into practice there was a long way”.
In 1857, Bishop Andrei together with the Uniate metropolitan of Blaj asked the exemption of the Orthodox and Uniate priests from taxes toward the state, as the priests of other confessions were exempted, but this petition was not answered.
Of course, the amount of money coming from state – when, after many insistences, eventually came – could not cover by far the demands of the eparchy. So it was necessary to appeal to the faithful too.
In the opening speech of the mixed eparchial synod of March 1850, the bishop nominated by reviewing the priorities of this synod the precarious material condition of the Orthodox Church of Transylvania, as an ardent issue. Thus, the synod decided to ask the permission of the government for to organize a collect of money all over the eparchy in order to support the burnt and robbed churches. Moreover, the bishop asked for help the other Romanian provinces: Moldavia, Wallachia and Bukovina.
In the autumn of 1857, while at Vienna in a private audience at the Court, Bishop Andrei Şaguna wrote more petitions, among others one by which he asked the permission to organize a collect of money in all the provinces of the monarchy, in order to build an Orthodox cathedral at Sibiu “because in the town there is only a chapel, without a tower or bells, so I feel obliged to go to the holy church as to a Jewish synagogue!” The petition was approved “and he was lucky to have among the first donors the emperor himself, with 1,000 ducats and the Governor Schwarzenberg of Transylvania, with 500 ducats; along them followed as the third great donor ‘the Lord’s servant Andreiu, with 2,000 florins’.” But he did not live to see this point of his programme of activity achieved, namely the construction of a grandiose cathedral.
Generally speaking, the decade of Neoabsolutism was a prolific one in cultural and educational terms.
The Viennese government had decided in 1850 that the school matters were in the competence of both state and Church.
The entire responsibility for the Orthodox elementary schools belonged to the Orthodox Church itself according to the decision of the eparchial synod of March 1850, by which the priests became the school principals, the protopopes were school inspectors, and the Orthodox bishop was their “supreme inspector”. If at the beginning the political intelligence accepted this solution as a good one in those political circumstances, later some wanted national schools with lay leadership, instead of confessional schools, an idea not alien their interests.
The necessary textbooks for the confessional schools were also part of the bishop’s concerns. We know twenty-five such textbooks written by different collaborators, on his call. The first stenography textbook in Romanian language came out from his initiative too.
In spite of the many failures in the school system – the lack of professionalism of the teachers, the lack of books, and the lack of the care supervision of the church authorities charged in this respect, the weak attendance of the children owing to poverty, the lack of funds or the bad use of the existing ones –, in 1858 Transylvania registered 2,398 elementary confessional schools with more than 90,000 pupils. Out of them 460 were German schools, 957 Magyar schools, and 981 Romanian schools out of which 693 of Orthodox confession, with 688 teachers and 33,286 schoolchildren (22,459 boys and 10,827 girls).
One of the main concerns of the learned bishop was to organize the theological seminary. The very year he was appointed as a vicar, he changed the training period of the future priests from six months to twelve months, introducing new subjects of study and establishing the admission only of the graduates of gymnasium. The synod of March 1850 decided to create the Theological-Pedagogical Institute, and on October 1, 1852, Bishop Andrei announced the teachers that in the future the clerical course will display two years. In the first year pedagogical subjects were studied, so that the priests could also work as teachers. Since the school year 1853/1854 the pedagogical course bases proper were laid, displaying one year.
Since 1861 the theology courses lasted three years, and this was so until 1921. As compared to the theological seminaries of Wallachia and Moldavia and later to the theological faculties of Bucharest and Czernowitz, which were assigned to the state, in the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Transylvania the priests and confessional teachers’ formation was exclusively in the competence of Church.
In 1852 Bishop Andrei Şaguna organized a collect of money in the eparchy in order to buy a residence building for the Theological-Pedagogical Institute, and in 1853 he bought a new building, the present day residence of the Metropolitanate of Sibiu.
But the bishop’s concerns for the institute did not limit to organization only, “but it focused on the entire internal life of the seminary, contributing substantially – by the many textbooks written by himself or on his call – to the progress of instruction, and going in many inspections himself.” He worked out the curricula, chose the teachers and supervised the teaching manner; until 1865 the theological and pedagogical courses were under the bishop’s direct leadership.
Granting scholarships to the poor students “partly from his private revenues, partly from the Funds especially created with this aim” was a priority too. The purpose to train a good teaching staff was materialized by sending every year the best graduates of the institute to a Western university.
Although the elementary schools and the seminary were the priorities, the eparchial synod insisted in 1850, that academic institutions should be taken into consideration, asking for the creation of an academy or university for the Romanians. Regarding this decision, the bishop petitioned the Ministry of Public Worship to set up in Cluj a Faculty of Law and Philosophy for the Romanians, he asked also the emperor.
Still in 1850 Andrei Şaguna had planned also the foundation of six high (of eight years) and of six low gymnasiums (of four years). Finally, he had to content himself with the foundation of the high gymnasium of Braşov, in 1850/1851; it was only in 1868 that the low gymnasium of Brad was founded. Out of the six schools with technical-trading profile he had designed in 1850, only one – a trading school – was set up at Braşov, in 1869.
An outstanding event for the Orthodox Church of Transylvania and for the bishop himself was the inauguration of the Eparchial Printing House, on August 27, 1850, “obtaining on August 31, 1850, the consent of the government to start the printing activity.” It was the first Romanian printing house of Sibiu, bought by the bishop with his own money and given by him to the Orthodox Church of Transylvania. According to the founder’s will “the principal purpose of me by the establishment of the Arch-eparchial Printing House was and remain: to edit church books, text books or scientific ones for an as possible as moderate price; to facilitate the writers to print their works, or to reprint classical church books; then, under a certain reserve I wished that along time, from the extra yearly revenues of the Printing House the poor clergymen’s widows of our eparchy should get some help”.
The printing house constituted also one of the important premises of the foundation, in 1853, of “The Romanian Telegraph”, a work “that preoccupied him very much”. This newspaper became in time the public tribune to express and spread the bishop’s ideas, because “Metropolitan Şaguna, when compelled by circumstances, when he considered to defend the prestige, the honour, or any other common imperious interest of the Church, he answered either by pastoral letters addressed to his faithful, or by brochures and press.” As a matter of fact, the necessity of the press for the Romanians was expressed by him since 1849, when he suggested Bishop Gherasim Raţ of Arad to create at Arad or Timişoara an informative newspaper for the Romanians of that area of the country.
Under Andrei Şaguna’s care and supervision more than thirty-five titles of religious books were reprinted in the first decade of its functioning, among which all twelve monthly church books (minee) and the illustrated Bible, the latter revised by the bishop himself. In a short time, all the religious books, school and church questionnaires and books for entire Transylvania and Banat were printed there; any calendar and school schematism for Romanian and German schools of Sibiu were printed for free. Among the most important fifty-one books printed during Andrei Şaguna’s lifetime in the newly founded printing house, twenty-five are his works and twenty-six belong to other writers. His works, especially those of canon law and history, reflect the bishop’s viewpoints on church, school, national and cultural matters.
During the entire Neoabsolutist era, in spite of the restrictions of communication among the inhabitants of the Romanian provinces, Bishop Şaguna had an intense correspondence on cultural-church issues with the Romanians in Wallachia and Moldavia (especially with ecclesiastical leaders: Metropolitans Nifon of Wallachia and Sofronie of Moldavia, Bishops Calinic of Râmnic and Filotei of Buzău, brothers Filaret and Neofit Scriban), and with some of Bukovina (Bishop Eugeniu Hacman, Hurmuzachi brothers). He was interested especially in “the development of the Church in the Principalities. When the bishops beyond the [Carpathian] Mountains lacked the courage to take attitude against the biblical and linguistic absurdities of such a writer as Eliade-Radulescu, Şaguna dared struggle skilfully against the wrong direction that Eliade wanted to inaugurate.” The proofs of Andrei Şaguna’s interest and involvement in the ecclesiastical matters of the Romanians are the articles of “The Romanian Telegraph”, and his standpoints concerning the ecclesiastical reforms in Romania, after 1859 – the stavropegic monasteries, the dedicated monasteries, the secularization of monastic properties. Even in his essential canonical work – “Compendium” – published in 1868, an important space was given to such “hot” topics of the Church of Romania. The Orthodox Church of Bukovina was the subject of some articles and correspondence, especially after 1860, when Bishop Eugeniu Hacman’s attitude toward the incorporation of the Eparchy of Bukovina in the Metropolitanate of Transylvania changed from a favourable one, in 1849, into an unfavourable, even an incisive one.
Image: “The big emblem” of Bishop Andrei Şaguna. Source: Mitropolitul Andreiu baron de Şaguna. Scriere comemorativă la serbarea centenară a naşterii lui, Sibiiu 1909, cover.
 There is a different way of dating the Neoabsolutist era by different historians. We preferred to mention both the factual date of the beginning of this era (March 1849, when the Reichstag was dissolved) and the legal date (December 1851, when the Constitution of 4 March 1849 was annuled).
 Cf. F. WALTER, Österreichische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte von 1500-1955, 178-183.
 Julius Haynau was the “particularly brutal commander” of the imperial troops which defended the Magyar revolutionary troops on August 13, 1849 at Şiria, and later he was the “foul henchman” of Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, whose government ordered the massacre of the Hungarian revolutionaries. Haynau’s hatred of revolutionary principles was fanatical. His murderous cruelty towards the subjugate people became a European scandal. A violent temper, which he made no attempt to control or conceal, led him into quarrels with the minister of war and he resigned his command in 1850. Then he travelled abroad and died in 1853. Cf. R. A. KANN, Z. V. DAVID, The Peoples of the Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918, 346.
 The Neoabsolutism was instituted in fact in 1849, but in name only at the end of 1851, by the Patent of 31 December. Despite its reputation as a repressive instrument, Bach’s government was not without positive accomplishments. It established a unified customs territory for the whole monarchy (including Hungary), composed a code for trades and crafts, completed the task of serf emancipation, and introduced improvements in universities and secondary schools.
The regime’s policies on other matters were more typically reactionary. Freedom of the press as well as jury and public trials were abandoned, corporal punishment by police orders restored, and internal surveillance increased. Cf. R. A. KANN, Z. V. DAVID, The Peoples of the Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918, 292-438; F. WALTER, Österreichische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte von 1500-1955, 183-185.
After the defeat of the revolution, the “decreed” Stadion Constitution of 4 March 1849 had proclaimed the establishment of the new crown land of the “Serbian Vojvodina and the Banat of Timişoara” which consisted of Bačka county, the Banat and two districts of Syrmia regions, but not the strongly Serbian military borders. The crown land was ethnically very mixed, the Romanian majority were followed by Serbians, Germans and Magyars. An Austrian governor seated in Timişoara ruled the area, and the title of voivode (duke) belonged to the emperor himself. The two official languages became German and “Illyrian” (what would become Serbo-Croatian), but in practice it was mainly German. The creation of this curious entity was designed less to reward the Serbians for their loyalty in 1848 than to punish the Magyars by detaching a sizable territory from the Crown of Saint Stephen. After a decade, the moves to reintroduce constitutional government in 1860, marked by Vienna’s efforts to conciliate the Magyar nobility, spelled an end to the crown land of Vojvodina. Cf. R. A. KANN, Z. V. DAVID, The Peoples of the Eastern Habsburg Lands, 1526-1918, 425 et seqq.
 Cf. K. HITCHINS, Andrei Şaguna şi românii din Transilvania în timpul decadei absolutiste, 17-22.
 K. HITCHINS, Orthodoxy and Nationality, 79-80.
 Cf. V. POCITAN, Geneza demnităţii patriarhale, 84.
“Seit dem 15.12.1848 tragen die Metropoliten von Sremski Karlovci den Patriarchentitel ständig ‘ad personam’.” Th. BREMER, Ekklesiale Struktur, 17.
 See “Metropolitul sârbesc Iosif Raiacsics învestit cu titlul de patriarch sârbesc şi cu dignitate de voivod sârbesc esmite ordinaţiune pentru întroducerea limbei sârbesci în administraţiunea diregătorielor mai înalte” (“Serbian Metropolitan Josip Rajačić, entitled as Serbian patriarch and voivode gives order that the Serbian language be introduced in the administration of high offices”), dated Semlin, January 1, 1849, in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 31-32.
 K. HITCHINS, Orthodoxy and Nationality, 78.
 Cf. K. HITCHINS, Andrei Şaguna şi românii din Transilvania în timpul decadei absolutiste, 18.
 Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu was the new Greek Catholic bishop since 1851, replacing Ioan Lemeni, who had been dismissed by General Puchner. “Dizzy” with the first military victories of the Magyar armies in the autumn of 1848 or maybe by conviction, Bishop Ioan Lemeni changed the policy of loyalty toward the Court, sending a circular letter, asking the faithful to join the Hungarian armies. It was a fatal thing for his position, because at the end of 1848 Puchner dismissed him from the episcopal see, sending him into “exile” to the Franciscan monastery in Vienna, where he died in 1861. Cf. I. LUPAŞ, Istoria bisericească a românilor ardeleni, 152.
 “Memorand aşternut de episcopul Andreiu Şaguna ministeriului şi în copiă guvernatorului civil şi militar Baron de Wohlgemuth despre dorinţele şi lipsele naţiunii române şi a bisericii răsăritene cu ocasiunea organisării nouă a Ardélului” (“Memorandum written by Bishop Andrei Şaguna to the Ministry and in copy to the civil and military governor, Baron of Wohlgemuth about the wishes and needs of the Romanian nation and the Eastern Church, by the new organization of Transylvania”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 46-55 here 46: “Von der Wiedereinführung also des alten Systems in Siebenbürgen kann nicht mehr die Rede sein…”.
 Ibid., 46: “Ob aber bei der Aufführung des neuen Gebäudes nicht auch Material aus dem eingestürzten genommen werden könnte?”.
 N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 110.
 Cf. N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 86.
 Cf. K. HITCHINS, Andrei Şaguna şi românii din Transilvania în timpul decadei absolutiste, 15.
 “Seiner Hochwürdigen dem Herrn g. n. u. Bischof von Schaguna. Hermannstadt, am 9. Oktober 1849”, in: N. POPEA, Memorialul, 364-366: “Ich habe auf eine volle Berücksichtigung verdienende Weise, in Erfahrung gebracht, dass die romanische Geistlichkeit sich damit befasse, geheime Versammlungen zu halten, an politischen Machinationen sich zu betheiligen, in diesem Sinne auch bei Verfassung von Petitionen solcher Art nicht nur mitzuwirken, sondern zu diesem Zwecke im Lande herum zu reisen, derlei Petitionen sogar unter der Bevölkerung zu verbreiten, und für dieselben Unterschriften zu sammeln.
Zu meinem Befremden wurde auch die Nachricht beigefügt, dass selbst Euer Hochwürden, was ich wohl nicht glauben kann, einen ähnlichen Einfluss ausüben, und an diesen geheimen Verabredungen und Schritten einen thätigen Antheil nehmen sollen.
Ich halte es für meine Pflicht Euer Hochwürden bezüglich eines solchen Verhaltens der romanischen Geistlichkeit ohne alle Rückhalt zu bemerken, dass ich die Geistlichkeit nicht als Organe ansehen kann, welche berufen sind, in die politischen Angelegenheiten des Staates wie wenn es ihr Amte wäre einzugreifen.
 “Dem Herrn Civil- und Militär-Governeur Baron Ludwig von Wohlgemuth, Excellenz. Hermannstadt den 13. November 1849”, in: N. POPEA, Memorialul, 366-367: “Ich umfasse zwar nicht in der Gestalt eines Allwissenden die Thaten meiner Geistlichkeit, um geradezu, und mit apodiktischer Gewissheit für jenes einzustehen, was zu meiner Kenntnis nicht gelangt, dennoch aber erlaube ich mir die gehorsamste Freiheit des Betragens meiner braven Geistlichen, deren mehrere des Märtirer-Todes für den angestammten Monarchen gestorben sind, mich dahin feierlich zu erklären, dass ich so lange man mich von dem Gegentheile nicht überzeugt, der Hoffnung lebe, dass meine in der Folgsamkeit und dem Gehorsam zu jeder Zeit ausgezeichnete Geistlichkeit mit ihrem Betragen dem Volke nicht nur kein schlechtes Beispiel gibt, und keine Aufregung in dem Volke verbreitet, sondern die väterliche Absicht der hohen Regierung aufs möglichste befördert.
 See “Guvernatorul Wohlgemuth cere dela episcopul Şaguna a justifica, pentru ce folosesce titlul de ‘episcop diecesan român al bisericei orientale în Transilvania’” (“Governor Wohlgemuth asks Bishop Şaguna to justify why he uses the title ‘Romanian eparchial bishop of the Eastern Church of Transylvania’”), dated Sibiu, February 21, 1850, in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 55.
 See the chapter III.3.5 herein.
 Cf. N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 258; N. POPEA, Memorialul, 367-369.
 See A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 54-55; R. KUTSCHERA, Landtag und Gubernium, 298.
 “[…] Governor Karl Schwarzenberg (1851-1858), Wohlgemuth’s successor, [was] a man who shared his [Şaguna’s] views on church-state relations and accepted the principle of national equality. Schwarzenberg had no special sympathy for the Orthodox, although he and Şaguna became friends, nor was he a liberal. He was in fact a staunch Roman Catholic and was as devoted to centralization and dynastic rights as his aristocratic friends in Vienna. Unlike most of them, he recognized the practical necessity of coming to terms with the nearly 650,000 Orthodox, if there was to be order and prosperity in Transylvania. He thoroughly disapproved of Thun’s policy of supporting the Uniates at the expense of the Orthodox, which he thought displayed a total lack of understanding of the religious problem there.” K. HITCHINS, Orthodoxy and Nationality, 234.
Andrei Şaguna wrote about this governor to Metropolitan Josip Rajačić, as of “our governor, who is a great friend of mine and ours, because he loves justice …” “A.B.M. 2578, Scrisoare a episcopului Andrei Şaguna către mitropolitul Iosif Raiacici” (“A.B.M. 2578, Bishop Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Metropolitan Josip Rajačić”), dated Sibiu, March 26, 1857), in: T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 538-539 here 539.
See also R. KUTSCHERA, Landtag und Gubernium, 298 et seqq.
 See A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 59-60.
 “[…] Count Leo Thun [was] the minister of religions and education from 1849 to 1860. He was a staunch Roman Catholic who championed the autonomy of his Church and its paramountcy over the other Churches of the monarchy. He regarded the Orthodox as schismatics and their Church as a danger to security of the state. In his view, it could not provide adequate guarantees against the willful behaviour of its priests because of their ignorance and its own lack of strong centralized authority. […] he used his powers to the fullest to promote the church Union with Rome among the Rumanians and, in so doing, to thwart Şaguna’s reform of the Orthodox Church. […] Şaguna respected Thun as a man of considerable learning and ability, but he found him woefully ignorant of Orthodox history and institutions.” K. HITCHINS, Orthodoxy and Nationality, 231-233.
 About the imperial instruction with restrictive measures which accompanied the appointment of Bishop Vasile Moga, of December 21, 1810, see the chapter I.2.4 herein.
 I. LUPAŞ, Vieaţa, 120. Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 84-85.
 See “Gravamenul episcopului Şaguna la Împăratul contra ministrului, cerând între alte şi reînfiinţarea metropoliei românilor ortodocşi” (“Bishop Şaguna’s complaint lodged to the emperor against the minister, asking among other things the reestablishment of the Metropolitanate of the Orthodox Romanians”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 122-151. On this issue see also N. CHIFĂR, Apărarea dreptului istoric privind restaurarea Mitropoliei Transilvaniei, 144-150.
As a matter of fact, the imperial patent of December 31, 1851, conferred on all Churches legally acknowledged free and public practice of their worship together with the independent administration of their own affairs. The independence of the Orthodox Church of Transylvania was explicitly recognized by the imperial patent of May 29, 1853. Cf. “Guvernatorul Schwarzenberg scrie ministrului luând în apărare biserica ortodoxă română din Transilvania” (“Governor Schwarzenberg writes to the minister defending the Romanian Orthodox Church of Transylvania”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 155-160 here 157.
 Implemented by the Article of Law No. 60 of Transylvania’s Diet of 1791, the denomination “Religio orientalis graeci Ritus non unita” was long and insistently used. A ministerial Decree of June 12, 1854, legislated that in all the official documents the denomination “not-Uniate Greeks” should be used. The negative and offensive connotation of this name brought along Neoabsolutist era even written insults addressed to the Orthodox by the Greek Catholics. Cf. “Gravamenul episcopului Şaguna” (“Bishop Şaguna’s complaint”), 127-129.
 By virtue of a rescript of August 29, 1792, in the case of the marriages between Orthodox and Roman or Greek Catholics both the religious service and the possible misunderstandings or court trials were exclusively under the jurisdictition of the Roman or Greek Catholic Churches and their ecclesiastical courts.
 The emperor’s decision of December 26, 1848, which simplified and levelled the conversion/reversion’s formalities irrespective of confession had been adopted as a norm in Transylvania too, by the Decree of February 24, 1850. Yet, as it made easy the coming back to the Orthodoxy of the church communities which had accepted the Union with Rome, was not received favourably; on the other hand raised the problem of the church properties in the case of massive conversion/reversion, under the circumstances in which the former pro-Unionist legislation stipulated that if a fourth of the Orthodox community passed to the Uniate Church, that ultimately meant the handing over of the Orthodox church building to the embraced confession.
“Es wäre nur zu wünschen, dass der betreffende Erlass auch in das Landes-Regierungsblatt aufgenommen und auf diesem, für alle wichtigeren Verordnungen vorgeschriebenen Wege, zur allgemeinen Kenntnis gebracht werde. […] Nur ein Wunsch bleibt noch übrig. Er betrifft die wichtige Frage, wie es mit dem Kirchen- und Pfarrgrund bei dem Uebertreten einer grösseren Anzahl von Gemeindegliedern gehalten werden soll? Hier werden noch immer die alten Vorschriften in Anwendung gebracht; dass diese Vorschriften aber nur zum Nachtheile unserer Kirche sprechen, kann bei dem Zustande, in welchem sie sich vor dem Jahre 1848 befand, einem Zweifel gewiss nicht unterliegen.” “Gravamenul episcopului Şaguna” (“Bishop Şaguna’s complaint”), 133-134.
 During the Neoabsolutist era, the political power insisted a lot that the Orthodox bishop proposes a project of reorganization of the consistory, “an offspring” of politics not of the Church, as Andrei Şaguna has described it. See the government documents and the bishop’s incisive answers on this topic, in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 115-122, 161-162.
Bishop Andrei asked the emperor that: “die Regelung des Diöcesankonsistoriums, wenn eine solche nothwendig ist, nur im Einklange mit den kirchlichen Vorschriften über Auftrag des Bischofs vorgenommen werde.” “Gravamenul episcopului Şaguna” (“Bishop Şaguna’s complaint”), 139.
 All the Romanians’ efforts, who were asking at the second point of the national programme of Blaj “the returning of the Romanian Metropolitanate according to the ancient right” were materialized, in 1850, by the setting up of a Greek Catholic Metropolitanate. On November 26, 1853, by the bulla Ecclesiam Christi, Pope Pius the IX set up the Greek Catholic Metropolitanate of Alba-Iulia and Făgăraş, followed by the founding of two new dioceses (of Gherla and Lugoj).
 Ibid., 149-150: “Ich würde die unverjährbaren Rechte unserer Kirche vergeben, wenn ich, als Bischof, nicht frei und unumwunden meine Stimme erheben sollte. Unsere Kirche, die gr. orientalische, war die älteste im Lande; Tradition und Geschichte, unvertilgbare Urkunden und Denkmäler sprechen davon, dass in Siebenbürgen griechische Bischofssitze standen, welche unter der Metropolie von Karlsburg zu einer kirchlichen Hierarchie vereinigt waren. […] Der Erzbischof und jeder, der mit ihm ging, handelte für seine eigene Person, nicht im Auftrage, nicht mit der Beglaubigung, nicht mit der Billigung der Kirche […]. So wenig in der römisch-katholischen Kirche ein Bischof, wenn er abfiele, Amt, Würde und Rechte des Bistums zu einer andern Kirche hinüber nehmen kann, so wenig ist dies in der gr. orientalischen Kirche denkbar, solange noch göttliches und menschliches Recht auf Erden waltet!
 See “Episcopul Şaguna rógă de nou pre Împăratul a considera cererea sa din 1 Decembre 1855” (“Bishop Şaguna asked the emperor once more to consider his complaint of December 1, 1855”), dated Vienna, September 9, 1857, in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 163-165.
 Cf. K. HITCHINS, Andrei Şaguna şi românii din Transilvania în timpul decadei absolutiste, 36.
 Cf. “Gravamenul episcopului Şaguna” (“Bishop Şaguna’s complaint”), 145.
 Cf. K. HITCHINS, Andrei Şaguna şi românii din Transilvania în timpul decadei absolutiste, 37.
 Cf. Metropolitan Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu’s circular letter, dated Blasiu [Blaj], April 21/9 1855, in: N. POPE`A, Vechi`a Metropolia, 167-169 here 167.
 Cf. N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 109; G. BARITIU, Parti alese din istori`a Transilvaniei, 560.
 See A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 45, 53; Nr. pres. 63 in: A. Bar. de SIAGUN’A, Scrisori apologetice, 11-63 here 18-19; “Andrei Şaguna către Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu” (“Andrei Şaguna to Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu”), dated Sibiu, 1867, February 1, in: A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 466-497 here 470.
 See “Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu către Andrei Şaguna” (“Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu to Andrei Şaguna”), dated Şimleu, July 14, 1850, in: A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 323-325.
 It is a proof that the church Union was again promoted by the political power.
 K. HITCHINS, Orthodoxy and Nationality, 196.
 A fragment of Greek Catholic Bishop Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu’s pastoral letter on the occasion of his appointment, in: N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 108.
 See “the big emblem” of Bishop Andrei Şaguna in the annex V herein.
 Metropolitan Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu’s circular letter, dated Blasiu [Blaj], April 9/21, 1855, in: N. POPE`A, Vechi`a Metropolia, 167-169 here 167.
 Andrei Şaguna’s protest against Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu’s circular letter of April 9/21, 1855, dated May 24, 1855, in: N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 110-111.
 N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 116, 119.
 See Andrei Şaguna’s pastoral letter No. 1090/1855, in: Gh. TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 195-201.
 Cf. G. BARITIU, Parti alese din istori`a Transilvaniei, 560-561.
 Cf. “A.B.M. 2583, Scrisoare a episcopului Andrei Şaguna către mitropolitul Iosif Raiacici” (“A.B.M. 2583, Bishop Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Metropolitan Josip Rajačić”), dated Sibiu, July 30, 1857, in T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 542-543 here 542. Cf also A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/2, 136-137.
 Cf. K. HITCHINS, Orthodoxy and Nationality, 184.
One of the more backward developments of Bach’s government was the concordat with the papacy of 1855, by which the Roman Catholic Church gained wide powers. It gave the Catholic Church extensive power as the state religion. Jurisdiction on matrimonial questions of all those baptized as Catholics was moved from secular to ecclesiastical courts. In education, the Church also had the right to ensure that courses other than religion classes did not conflict with Church doctrine and could censor any publication it believed to be dangerous to Catholics. Cf. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 14 Macropædia, 525. More on the concordate of 1855 see Friedrich HOCHSTETTER, Die Geschichte eines Konkordats. Das österreichische Konkordat von 1855, Berlin ; Erika WEINZIERL-FISCHER, Die österreichischen Konkordate von 1855 und 1933, Wien 1960.
 Cf. A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 48.
 I. LUPAŞ, Vieaţa, 136. Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 85-86.
 Cf. A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 85-86.
 Andrei Şaguna’s pastoral letter No. 1090/1855, in: Gh. TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 195-201 here 201.
 See “A.B.M. 2578”, “A.B.M. 2579”, “A.B.M. 2583”, “A.B.M. 2586”, “A.B.M. 2589”, “A.B.M. 2591”, in: T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 538-547.
 Cf. A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 80-83.
 See Andrei Şaguna’s circular letter No. 892/1858, in: Gh. TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 434-435.
 See Andrei Şaguna’s circular letter No. 858/1853, in: Gh. TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 263-266.
 A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 65. See also “Andrei Şaguna către Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu, Sibiu, 1867 februarie 1” (“Andrei Şaguna to Alexandru Sterca Şuluţiu, Sibiu, 1867, February 1”), in: A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 466-497 here 472.
 See the chapter III.1.5 herein. Cf. also M. PĂCURARIU, 100 de ani de la reînfiinţarea Mitropoliei Ardealului, 819-820.
 “A.B.M. 3272 Predică în Duminica întâia a Postului Mare, rostită în Braşov, la 1850, întru suvenirea reînvierii Sinodului bisericesc al Episcopiei româneşti din Sibiu” (“A.B.M. 3722 Sermon on the first Sunday of Lent, uttered at Braşov, in 1850, in the context of the revival of the church synod of the Romanian Eparchy of Sibiu”), in: D. MAN, Un nou manuscris, 124-132 here 124.
Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 42; P. BRUSANOWSKI, Reforma constituţională, 91-93.
 See “Guvernatorul provocă pre episcopul Şaguna a designa însuşi pre membrii sinodului interzicând alegerea lor prin aclamări” (“The governor asked Bishop Şaguna to appoint the members of the synod himself, forbidding their election by acclamation”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 62.
 See “Guvernatorul notifică episcopului Şaguna denumirea lui Ioan de Karabetz de comisariu al regimului pentru sinod” (“The governor announced Bishop Şaguna about Ioan of Karabetz’s appointment as commissary of the government for the synod”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 64-65.
 D. SUCIU, Lupta naţionalităţilor din Imperiul Habsburgic, 196.
 I. LUPAŞ, Şaguna şi Eötvös, 12.
 Actele Soboarelor…1850 şi 1860, 25.
 See Actele Soboarelor Bisericii greco-răsăritene din Ardeal din anii 1850 şi 1860, Sibiiu 1864; “Petiţiunea sinodului eparchial din anul 1850 cătră Maiestatea Sa Preaînălţatul nostru Monarch aşternută pe calea guvernului ţării” (“The petition of the eparchial synod of 1850 to His Highness, our Monarch, sent through the country government”), dated Sibiu, April 10, 1850, in Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 65-68.
 “A.B.M. 3272 Predică în Duminica întâia a Postului Mare, rostită în Braşov, la 1850, întru suvenirea reînvierii Sinodului bisericesc al Episcopiei româneşti din Sibiu” (“A.B.M. 3722 Sermon on the first Sunday of Lent, uttered at Braşov, in 1850, in the context of the revival of the church synod of the Romanian Eparchy of Sibiu”), in: D. MAN, Un nou manuscris, 124-132 here 127.
 Andrei Şaguna’s circular letter No. 110/1850, in: Gh. TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 402-404 here 403.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 69; Al. GĂINĂ, Activitatea culturală a Mitropolitului Andrei Şaguna, 198.
 Cf. § 17 of the synod in: Actele Soboarelor…1850 şi 1860, 45. See also M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 100.
 Cf. the chapters III.2.2, III.2.3, III.2.7 and III.2.8 herein.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, 100 de ani de la reînfiinţarea Mitropoliei Ardealului, 820.
 See the chapter III.2.2 herein.
 At length on the autonomy and privileges of the Saxons in Transylvania see the chapter I.1.1 herein. The University (Universitas Saxonum/Sachsische Nationsuniversität) had legal, administrative, economical and political competences. The representative body was made up of the University assembly, which met twice a year, on St. George Feast Day (April 23) and on St. Catherine Feast Day (November 25). Cf. S. VOGEL, Autonomia săsească în Transilvania, 11.
 Cf. A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 42; N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 70.
 At length on the works of the conference at M. SĂSĂUJAN, Note de jurnal ale episcopului Andrei Şaguna, 98-119.
 Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Protopope Meletie Drăghici from Timişoara, dated Sibiu, October 7, 1856, in: T. BODOGAE, Dintr-o corespondenţă timişoreană, 32; Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 196.
 See “A.B.M. 2578”, Bishop Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Metropolitan Josip Rajačić, dated Sibiu, March 26, 1857, in: T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 538-539. Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/2, 130-131.
 Bishop Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Metropolitan Josip Rajačić, dated Olmütz, March 16/28, 1849, in: N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 126-128. Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/2, 86-87.
 The German version: Andreas SCHAGUNA, Promemoria über das historische Recht der nationalen Kirchen-Authonomie der Romanen morgendländ. Kirche in den k. k. Kronländern der österreich. Monarchie, Wien 1849; The Romanian version: Andreiu ŞAGUNA, Promemorie despre dreptul istoric al autonomiei bisericeşti naţionale a românilor de relegea răsăriteană în ces. reg. provinţii ale Monarhiei Austriace, Sibiiu 1849.
 The Romanian version: Andreiu ŞAGUNA, Adaosu la Promemoria despre dreptul istoric al autonomiei bisericeşti naţionale a românilor de relegea răsăriteană în ces. reg. provinţii ale Monarhiei Austriace, Sibiiu 1850.
 The Romanian version: “Memorial, prin care se lămuresce cererea românilor de religiunea răsăriténă în Austria pentru restaurarea metropoliei lor din punct de vedere a ss. canone, – aşternut c. r. ministeriu pentru cult şi instrucţiune în 1851, de Andreiu Bar. de Şaguna, episcopul bisericei răsăritene în Ardeal” (“Memorial which clarifies the petition of the Romanians of the Eastern confession of Austria meant to restore their metropolitanate from the point of view of the holy canons, submitted to the Ministry of Public Worship and Instruction in 1851, by Andreiu Baron of Şaguna, the bishop of the Eastern Church in Transylvania”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 88-97.
 A length on these works see the chapter V.1.1 herein.
 See M. SĂSĂUJAN, Note de jurnal ale episcopului Andrei Şaguna, 98-119.
 See Antwort auf die Angriffe einiger Romanen und der Presse gegen die Einheit der Hierarchie der morgenländischen catholischen orthodoxen Kirche und die serbische Nation in den k. k österreichischen Staaten, Wien 1851.
 See “Guvernul invită pre episcopul Şaguna a participa la sinodul episcopesc în Carloviţ pentru alegerea de episcop la Arad, Timişóra, Verşeţ şi Buda” (“The government invites Bishop Şaguna to participate in the synod of the bishops in Karlowitz for the election of bishop of Arad, Timişoara, Werschetz and Buda”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 100-101.
 See “Episcopul Şaguna face gravamen la Împăratul faţă de procederea patriarchului sârbesc la sinodul electoral din Carloviţ” (“Bishop Şaguna presents a complaint to the emperor, regarding the Serbian patriarch’s dealing at the electoral synod of Karlowitz”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 102-107.
 S. DRAGOMIR, André Şaguna et Joseph Rajačić, 265.
 See “A.B.M. 2566”, “A.B.M. 2567”, “A.B.M. 2568”, “A.B.M. 2578”, “A.B.M. 2579”, “A.B.M. 2583”, “A.B.M. 2585”, “A.B.M. 2586”, “A.B.M. 2591”, “A.B.M. 2608”, “A.B.M. 2620”, “A.B.M. 2682”, “A.B.M. 2623”, in: T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 534-551. Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/2, 65-156.
 Cf. Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, 123.
 See the chapter III.3.1 herein.
 Cf. N. POPE`A, Vechi`a Metropolia, 180-187.
 The Viennese newspaper “Wanderer”, in the issues 178/1860, 184/1860, 201/1860, 202/1860, 210/1860 hosted the first controversies, giving right to the Romanians’ arguments. The same did “Ost und West”, in the issues 371/1862, 374/1862, 387/1862, 388/1862. Cf. N. POPE`A, Vechi`a Metropolia, 183-241.
 See “Serbski Dnevnik”, No. 379/1862.
 See “Pesti Hirnök”, No. 67/1862 and “Pesti Napló”, No. 66/1862 and 68/1862. Cf. also “Andrei Şaguna către Procopie Ivacicovici” (“Andrei Şaguna to Procopie Ivacicovici”), in: A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 138-139.
As one could expect, the Magyar point of view in these newspapers was similar to the Serbian one, namely the rejection of the idea to re-establish the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Transylvania.
 “Episcopul Şaguna cătră Hacman, episcopul Bucovinei, din sinodul diecesan ţinut în Sibiiu în Oct. 1860” (“Bishop Şaguna to Bishop Hacman of Bukovina from the diocesan synod held at Sibiu, in October, 1860”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 177-180 here 179.
 On the history of Bukovina and its Church see Nicolae CIACHIR, Din istoria Bucovinei (1775-1944), Bucureşti 1993; Raimund Friedrich KAINDL, Das Ansiedlungswesen in der Bukowina seit der Besitzergreifung durch Österreich, Innsbruck 1902; Ion NISTOR, Istoria bisericii din Bucovina, Bucureşti ²1991; Peter PLANK, Orthodoxe Kirche und Theologie in der Bukowina zur Zeit der Habsburgerherrschaft (1774-1918), in: Blicke gen Osten. Festschrift für Friedrich Heyer zum. 95. Geburtstag, hrsg. von Martin Tamcke, Münster 2004, 169-184; Emanuel TURCZYNSKI, Geschichte der Bukowina in der Neuzeit. Zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte einer mitteleuropäisch geprägten Landschaft, Wiesbaden 1993.
See also “Resoluţiune împărătéscă din 8 Decembre 1786, prin care eparchiile din Transilvania şi Bucovina se pun cu cele disciplinare sub metropolia sârbéscă din Carloviţ” (“The imperial resolution from December 8, 1786, by which the Eparchies of Transylvania and Bukovina are under the Serbian Metropolitanate of Karlowitz, together with the disciplinary matters”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 1-2.
 “Episcopul Şaguna cătră Hacman, episcopul Bucovinei, din sinodul diecesan ţinut în Sibiiu în Oct. 1860” (“Bishop Şaguna to Bishop Hacman of Bukovina from the diocesan synod held at Sibiu, in October, 1860”), in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 177-180 here 178.
 See the chapter III.1.5 herein.
 At length on the canonical problems of the Eparchy of Bukovina see the chapters VI.1.2 and VI.2.3.2 herein.
 At length on the litigation from the Holy Trinity Church of Braşov, which started in 1788, in: I. PUŞCARIU, Notiţe, 139-149.
The Greeks’ fury was so strong, that it hasted the death of the Minister József Eötvös of public worship, a friend of Andrei Şaguna. In the last part of his mandate, after he was first inclined to give to the Greeks the church and its properties, the minister, examining the issues in detail decided on July 30, 1869, to keep the parity between Romanians and Greeks concerning the language of prayers and priests, a decision which the Greeks turned into a weapon used to fight the minister himself, attacking him even in the Diet of Pest. Promising to solve the litigation in the Diet, the minister asked all the documents of the case from the archives, but he died with them under his pillow.
 N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 133.
 See the chapter II.4.3 herein.
 C. ERBICEANU, Jubileul centenar, 727.
 Bishop Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Archimandrite Neonil, the abbot of Neamţ Monastery, dated Sibiu, July 12, 1850, in: N. BĂNESCU, Stareţul Neonil, 84-86 here 85.
 P. TEODOR, Preface at K. HITCHINS, Ortodoxie şi naţionalitate, 16.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 108.
 See Andrei Şaguna’s “Representation” to the imperial commissary of Transylvania, dated Sibiu, January 13, 1850, No. 2, in: N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 165-168.
 Cf. “Propunerile episcopului Şaguna presentate ministrului pentru conferinţele episcopesci dela Viena” (“Bishop Şaguna’s suggestions presented to the minister for the bishops’ conferences of Vienna”), November 16, 1850, in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 73-87 here 79-82.
 “When the Roman Catholic dean from Sibiu, Schlauf, who had participated in the solemn event with his Bishop Hainald, coming back at Sibiu spread through the town the fame about the special grace Şaguna enjoyed from the emperor, saying ‘Now I saw with my eyes the grace Şaguna enjoys on the part of the emperor!’.” N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 47.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 108-109.
 I. MIHĂLCESCU, Activitatea lui Şaguna pe tărâmul bisericesc, 758.
 See Andrei Şaguna’s circular letter No. 480/1861, in: Gh.TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 442-443.
 Andrei Şaguna’s circular letter No. 780/1861, in: Gh.TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 444-445 here 444.
 See N. BĂNESCU, Stareţul Neonil. Corespondenţa sa cu C. Hurmuzachi şi Andreiu Şaguna, 62-99; A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 210-233; C. ERBICEANU, Corespondenţe privitoare la relaţiile lui Şaguna cu arhiereii din Ţara Românească şi Moldova, 731-745; Gh. MOISESCU, O scrisoare a lui Andreiu Şaguna către Barbu D. Ştirbei, 594-600.
 The main Foundations and Funds created by Andrei Şaguna are: “Francis Joseph” Foundation meant to help the Romanian Orthodox students, created in 1853, after the assassination attempt on the Emperor Francis Joseph I; the Fund of the cathedral, initiated in 1857; the Fund of the Archbishopric, created in 1850, out of the rest left from the collect which was meant to buy the bishop’s residence, plus the taxes resulted from the new-married, divorces, or those applied on different punishments; the Fund of Andrew Seminary, created in his first years at Sibiu; the Fund of the eparchial clergy; the Fund of the personnel of the cathedral, created in 1864, with the state financial help; the Fund of the personnel of the eparchial chancellery, created in 1864 also; the Fund of the eparchial synod, created in 1870; the Eparchial Printing House and its Fund, created with bishop’s personal money, in 1850; Pantazi Foundation, created in 1854, on the premature death of his secretary and disciple, Grigorie Pantazi; the Fund of the poor churches, created in 1857; the Fund of the poor teachers, created in 1857 also; the Foundation for poor churches and schools of the Archbishopric, denominated since 1874 Şaguna Foundation, because the metropolitan had destined his entire fortune to it. Cf. N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 169-171.
 See M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 100, 105.
 N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 178.
 Cf. A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 88.
 Bishop Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Metropolitan Nifon of Wallachia, dated Sibiu, October 28, 1861, in: C. ERBICEANU, Corespondenţe privitoare la relaţiile lui Şaguna cu arhiereii din Ţara Românească şi Moldova, 741-742 here 741.
 The Orthodox cathedral of Sibiu was erected quite late, in the years 1902-1906, during the ministry of the Metropolitan Ioan Meţianu (1899-1916).
 N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul, Discurs, 23.
 The Neoabsolutist era was favourable to the cultural development of the nations of Transylvania. See V. RĂŞINĂREANU, Andrei Şaguna şi şcoala, 59-60; M. PĂCURARIU, Andrei Şaguna îndrumător al învăţământului teologic sibian, 55-58; I. CHIRILĂ, Elementele structurale ale proiectului educaţional al mitropolitului Andrei Şaguna, 163-169.
 Gh. TULBURE, Activitatea literară, 21.
 “A.B.M. 2576” Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Protopope Filip Trandafilovici from Werschetz, dated Sibiu, January 28, 1857, in: T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 537-538 here 538; A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/2, 224-225 here 225.
See also V. BEL, Misiunea socială a Bisericii în concepţia Mitropolitului Andrei Şaguna, 230-235; M. PĂCURARIU, Mitropolitul Şaguna şi satul românesc, 77-79; I. VICOVAN, Activitatea filantropică a mitropolitului Andrei Şaguna, 171.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 97-98; the chapter III.2.5 herein.
 Andrei Şaguna’s circular letter No. 530/1852, in: Gh. TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 253-255 here 254.
 Andrei Şaguna’s circular letter No. 858/1853, in: Gh.TULBURE, Mitropolitul Şaguna, 263-266 here 265.
 See this topic treated at length at E. MACAVEI, Creatori de manuale în şcoala generaţiei Mitropolitului Andrei Baron de Şaguna, 259-279.
 See M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 98.
 See this topic treated at length at Al. GĂINĂ, Activitatea culturală a Mitropolitului Andrei Şaguna, 196-200. Cf. also Paul BRUSANOWSKI, Învăţământul confesional ortodox din Transilvania între anii 1848-1918, Cluj-Napoca 2005, 83-162; IDEM, Mitropolitul Andrei baron de Şaguna, organizator al învăţământului ortodox din Transilvania, 234-256.
 “A.B.M. 2556” Bishop Samuil Maşirevici’s letter to Andrei Şaguna, dated Timişoara, January 24, 1855, in: T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 529-531 here 529. Cf. also A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/2, 179-182 here 180.
 See the school councillor Pavel Vasici’s report published under the title “Impărtăşiri pedagogice” in: Telegraful Român, No. 1, 2, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 22, 23 and 34, year V, Sibiu 1857.
 Cf. Telegraful Român, No. 17, year VI, Sibiu, April 24, 1858, 66; P. CHERESCU, Eparhia Ardealului în lumina conscripţiilor şaguniene din anul 1858, 368-386.
 The financial matters as well as the curricula of the seminary were objects of his petitions to Commissary Eduard Bach, respectively the Ministry of the Interior, of January, respectively November 1850. See Andrei Şaguna’s “Representation” to the imperial commissary of Transylvania, dated Sibiu, January 13, 1850, No. 2, in: N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 165-168; “Propunerile episcopului Şaguna presentate ministrului pentru conferinţele episcopesci dela Viena” (“Bishop Şaguna’s suggestions presented to the minister for the bishops’ conferences of Vienna”), November 16, 1850, in: Il. PUŞCARIU, Metropolia, colecţia de acte, 73-87.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, 150 de ani de la înfiinţarea primei şcoli teologice ortodoxe din Ardeal, 355.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 100.
 See M. PĂCURARIU, Andrei Şaguna îndrumător al învăţământului teologic sibian, 55-57.
 Cf. I. MIHĂLCESCU, Activitatea lui Şaguna pe tărâmul bisericesc, 758.
 Cf. M. PĂCURARIU, 150 de ani de la înfiinţarea primei şcoli teologice ortodoxe din Ardeal, 359.
 “Întâlnirea mea cu Excelenţa Sa dl ministru de culte la Viena în 7/19 Septembrie 1857” (“My meeting with His Excellency the minister of public worship, at Vienna, on September 7/19, 1857”), in: A. ŞAGUNA, Memoriile, 105-110 here 107.
 See N. CHIFĂR, Contribuţia mitropolitului Andrei Şaguna la dezvoltarea învăţământului românesc din Transilvania – Gimnaziul din Braşov, 218-227.
 See M. PĂCURARIU, Istoria Bisericii Ortodoxe Române, vol. 3, 99.
 See “Telegraful Român”, year I, Sibiu 1853, 106-107.
 “It is fantastic what this printing house has made. […] It spread hundreds of thousands of cathechisms, ABCs, biblical stories, popular text books for a few money a copy in the all villages; then, tens of thousands church books from breviaries to liturgical books, up to the beautiful illustrated Bible, which we find today even in the farthest villages in the mountains.” V. BRANISCE, Andrei, Baron de Şaguna, 14.
See also V. BUNEA, Mitropolitul Şaguna – ctitor al bibliotecii şi al tipografiei arhidiecezane, 107-114.
 Andrei Şaguna’s Testament, in: N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 178-187 here 182.
 A. GRAMA, Andrei Şaguna – file dintr-un album documentar, 62.
Founded by the Orthodox bishop, the moral author of the most important articles, the newspaper approached economic, social, political and spiritual issues of the time, at the level of the majority of the faithful, out of his personal perspective and his understanding of the pacifying and progressive role of the Church, in a society so divided politically, socially and from a confessional point of view. The Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu stated about this newspaper, after Andrei Şaguna’s death: “A paper from Transylvania, of His Excellency, the metropolitan of Sibiu, the most modern beyond the Carpathians, which follows perseveringly the unforgettable Şaguna’s modest and certain policy.” M. EMINESCU, Scrieri politice şi literare, 158.
 N. POPEA, Archiepiscopul şi Metropolitul, 117.
 Cf. “Andrei Şaguna către Gherasim Raţ, Sibiu, 26 noiembrie 1849” (“Andrei Şaguna to Gherasim Raţ, Sibiu, November 26, 1849”), in: A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 117-118.
 Between Andrei Şaguna and the Evangelic lawyer from Sibiu, of Austrian origin, “the allhappy ministry councillor” Jakob Rannicher, there was a quite rich correspondence. In 1908 Ilarion Puşcariu made reference to “thirty-two letters which are kept”, sent by Andrei Şaguna, which he had examined by Iuliu Bielz’s kidness, Rannicher’s son-in-law. (Il. PUŞCARIU, Chestiunea instalării lui Andreiu Baron de Şaguna în scaunul mitropolitan, 146) Twelve of these letters were later published in: Spicuiri şi fragmente din corespondenţa lui Şaguna, in: Mitropolitul Andreiu baron de Şaguna. Scriere comemorativă la serbarea centenară a naşterii lui, Sibiiu 1909, 467-539. Today are kept in the State Archives of Sibiu, in Fund Bielz: Nr. 310 (twenty-seven original letters and two copies of Şaguna’s letters to Rannicher) and No. 387 (a letter written by Rannicher to Şaguna, dated Cluj, August 12, 1866). Cf. J. SCHNEIDER, Der Hermannstädter Metropolit, 101-107; M. VLAICU, Andrei Şaguna şi anturajul său german de la Sibiu, 105-106.
 Telegraful Român, No. 17, year III, Sibiu, February 26, 1855, 65. See also M. PĂCURARIU, Andrei Şaguna: activitatea editorială, 49-62.
Johannes Honterus (1498-1549) was the greatest propagandist of the Lutheran doctrine among the Saxons in Transylvania, owner of a printing house where Luther’s works were published. See Harald ZIMMERMANN, Johannes Honterus. Der siebenbürgische Humanist und Reformator, Bonn 1998.
 See C. STREZA, Importanţa cărţilor de cult tipărite în timpul păstoririi lui Andrei Şaguna, 332-338.
 See Biblia, adecă Dumnezeiasca Scriptură a Legii cei Vechi şi a cei Noao, după originalul celor şaptezeci şi doi de tâlcuitori din Alexandria, tipărită în zilele Prea Înălţatului nostru Împărat al Austriei Franţisc Iosif I, supt priveghierea şi cu binecuvântarea Ecselenţei Sale, Prea Sfinţitului Domn Andreiu Baron de Şaguna, Sibiiu 1856-1858, 1081 pages (Cyrillic letter).
Cf. also D. ABRUDAN, Valori patrimoniale din timpul mitropolitului Andrei Şaguna. „Biblia…”. 150 de ani de la apariţie, 60-64; M. BASARAB, Biblia lui Şaguna, 212-225; O. MOCEANU, Biblia lui Andrei Şaguna şi limba vie a poporului, 226-231; I. POPESCU MĂLĂEŞTI, Biblia tipărită de Şaguna, 746-750; J. SCHNEIDER, Der Hermannstädter Metropolit, 115-156; S. TOFANĂ, Biblia lui Şaguna sau fenomenul şagunian între actualitate şi uitare, 145-151.
 Cf. T. BODOGAE, Un capitol din istoria relaţiilor culturale sîrbo-române, 525 -526.
 Cf. I. MIHĂLCESCU, Activitatea lui Şaguna pe tărâmul bisericesc, 759.
 See Andrei Şaguna’s letter to Protopope Meletie Drăghici from Timişoara, dated Sibiu, October 23, 1856, in: T. BODOGAE, Dintr-o corespondenţă timişoreană, 32-33; A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 197-198.
 His relationships with the Romanians beyond the Carpathians were born at the beginning of the year 1849, during his second political mission at Court, and consolidated immediately after the revolution, when the Eparchy of Transylvania received substantial aids, especially from Moldavia. See N. BĂNESCU, Stareţul Neonil, 62-99.
Later, after the opening of the Eparchial Printing House in Sibiu, exchanges of printed works developed and also exchanges of opinions on church books. See C. ERBICEANU, Corespondenţe privitoare la relaţiile lui Şaguna cu arhiereii din Ţara Românească şi Moldova, 731-745; N. BOCŞAN, I.-V. LEB, Corespondenţa lui Andrei Şaguna cu arhiereii din Moldova şi Ţara Românească, 71-93; I. LUPAŞ, Din corespondenţa lui Şaguna cu Filaret Scriban, 337-342; A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 207-237, 244-245, 254-276, 284-288.
 See A. ŞAGUNA, Corespondenţa I/1, 291-311.
 I. LUPAŞ, Sufletul lui Şaguna, 285. Here it is about the famous controversy between Andrei Şaguna and Ion Heliade Rădulescu, on “the Latin” translation of the Bible, initiated by the latter. More on this issue see at D. ABRUDAN, Controversa dintre mitropolitul Andrei Şaguna şi Ion Heliade Rădulescu privind traducerea Bibliei, 96-115; O. MOCEANU, Teologie şi filologie. Andrei Şaguna vs. Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Piteşti 2003; Gh. TULBURE, Şaguna şi Heliade, 3-8.
 See Telegraful Român: 114/1863; 21/1864; 53/1865.
 The Romanian Provinces Moldavia and Wallachia, which during the Middle Age were under the Ottoman Empire, were united politically first in 1859, as Romanian United Principalities, by Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859-1866), who on December 24, 1861, proclaimed them as state Romania, under the Ottoman suzerainty. In 1877 Romania won his independence and in 1881 proclaimed itself Kingdom, under the reign of Charles-Luis I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1866-1914). Cuza started changes in the entire Romanian political, social, economical and religious life and managed to create the constitutional and economic foundations of modern Romania. Cf. History of Romania. Compendium, 498 et seq., 501-510.
 Stavropegic were those monasteries or churches which according to a Byzantine tradition from the Middle Age were not under the jurisdiction of the local bishops, but of the patriarch of Constantinople. The distinctive sign of such subordination was a cross given by patriarch to that establishment, stauropegion (Σταυροπήζιον) meaning “fixture of a cross”. Stavropegic monasteries acknowledged the jurisdiction of the patriarch, commemorated him in the diptychs and paid him taxes (the kanonikon). They provided an important source of revenue for the patriarchate. Cf. Stauropegion, in: The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. 3, 1946-1947.
 The dedicated monasteries designated those monasteries in Moldavia and Wallachia, which beginning with the end of the fifteenth century had been subordinated together with their properties to the Holy Sepulchre, the monasteries on the Holy Mount Athos, the Monastery St. Catherine of Sinai, etc. This subordination determined “the unlimited interference of the patriarch of Constantinople in leading the two canonical units under his jurisdiction [the Metropolitanates of Moldavia and Wallachia]. The patriarch used the canonical power not just for the dogmatic guidance of the Metropolitanates, but to maintain and consolidate the Greek clergy in the country, the abbots and monks of the dedicated monasteries, through which the entire Orthodox Christian East accumulated huge material revenues.” C. DRĂGUŞIN, Legile bisericeşti ale lui Cuza Vodă, 88.
 The secularization of monastic properties, one of Alexandru Ioan Cuza’s radical measures, was promulgated on December 13/25, 1863 (The Law of December 1863). This reform placed 25% of the Romania’s territory (at the time Romania meant Moldavia and Wallachia) under state ownership. Most of these properties belonged to stavropegic and dedicated monasteries. Cf. History of Romania. Compendium, 503.
 See A. Baronu de SIAGUN`A, Compendiu, 203-224.
 See Telegraful Român: 82/1862; 83/1862; 100/1862; 101/1862; 102/1862.
 At length on this topic see the chapters VI.1.2, VI.1.3, and VI.2.3.2 herein. About Andrei Şaguna’s relationships with the Romanian Principalities see also I.-M. IELCIU, Relaţiile lui Andrei Şaguna cu personalităţi de dincolo de Carpaţi, 343-357; Şt. METEŞ, Relaţiile lui Andrei Şaguna cu românii din Principatele Române, Arad 1925; J. SCHNEIDER, Der Hermannstädter Metropolit, 93-101.

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