“Converting” the Orthodox in Transilvania to Greek Catholic Church

In the late seventeenth century Habsburg Empire “converted” Orthodox Romanians in Transylvania to Greek Catholicism. The situation of Transylvanian Romanians was very heavy, according to “diploma” issued in Vienna by Leopold I, in 1691, which stipulated that only Hungarians, Saxons and Szeklers were the three “nations” privileged and Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism and Unitarianism, the four religions who were accepted. Orthodox Romanians were only tolerated.
It was aiming to attract the Romanian Orthodox into a new Church, without any action by conversion, leaving them in the belief that they are not required no change. Uniatism is proven and thereby to have been a creation of politics. Catholicism does not engage in a work of conversion because it did not trust its success. It has chosen the more convenient: a deceit of Romanian Orthodox and the pressure of the State on them.
Were many pressures on Orthodox and the number of those who have been cheated was great one. Should volumes for uninterrupted persecution on the people, incurred for the will of the Romanian Transylvania to remain in the Orthodox Church, especially from 1701 to 1761, when is known a part of his success to get an Orthodox bishop.

The suffering by Romanians for their ancestral faith

Cruelty is hard to describe the new dominions. Romanian Orthodox died as martyrs in all parties for their faith, shot or hanged, beaten and enclosed in dungeons. Empress Maria Theresa herself had to admit in 1760 that rescript “crowd was treated in the principality that our death and other forms of cruelty for refusing to unite with the Greek-catholic rite.”
Contemporary documents are full of stories of the Transylvanian Orthodox on this situation. They addressed many memories to Vienna, memories that include the description of persecution to which they were subjected. Soldiers entered villages at night, tied the guards, robbing houses and arrest priests, not before beating them. Priests were only released if they promised that they will not commit until they recognize the divine services union with Rome. In these conditions, thousands of people died without baptism, with no confession, and without the Holy Communion. There were priests who continued to serve without going to Greek Catholicism, but did not remain unpunished. One of the measures taken by the Austrian authorities against them was confiscation of their land. In 1755, the Metropolitan Karlovitz Romans wrote complaining of their situation, mentioned as prisons were full of priests and laymen. In May of 1760, in the Assembly governors from Deva he was presented a written memory to the Romans passed through hardships. In this statement they mentioned that they agree to pay any fee, but did not agree to forsake their ancestral faith.

General Adolf von Buccow – the real founder of Greek Catholicism in Transylvania

A year later, General Adolf von Buccow, accompanied by troops, was sent to Transylvania for a specific purpose, that of the order. At first, the Roman general promises fulfillment of their desires. Shortly after these promises, Buccow start a retaliatory action more difficult than previous ones. One of the measures we took was to trigger an investigation to find out who were the Romans who said against union with Rome. Although it formed impartial commission results showed that almost everywhere Romans declared Orthodox. The paradox of this situation is that at the conclusion of the investigation, General refused to grant Orthodox churches and church property as would have been normal.
The situation was becoming increasingly difficult for the Orthodox. Commission dismantling that under the presidency of active Buccow at Sibiu, scored some of the united Orthodox Romanians. The registrations were made at will and was not taken into account the wishes of the Romans. On 6 May 1761 General Buccow forward a report to the Empress:
“Please allow me to introduce Bishop Dionysius Novacovici (formerly Orthodox bishop of Buda) all over the principality … namely as soon as possible to put an end to riot future Vlachs by stabilizing a chieftains spiritual, then take in orders his subjects, especially to oppose constantly growing authority of Sophronius (St. Sophrony of Crow) in this nation; it is really time to do so, because otherwise no longer save anything in union with all the means used, which I certainly did not spare them, and which can and should give testimony across the country because so loud and hard I never worked, it needs to recognize. ”
One way of General Buccow speaking was demolished monasteries and Orthodox hermitages. The general thought so as to make a conversion. Bishop catolic Bajtay is appalled by general measures when he said he would massacre all Romanians from Bistrita land because they did not want to go to Greek Catholicism.
“Rightfully he was able to say that the real founder of the United Church of Transylvania was this general Austrian cannons and its dragons.”

Saints Confessors of Ardeal – an example for the Romanians today

There were few priests and lay people from Transylvania who defended the Orthodox ancestral law against Austrian domination, which was trying to go to Greek Catholicism by force.
Between them there are and St. Vissarion (Sarai), which began a movement preaching of the Orthodox Faith (1744). The move triggered by the increased concern in Court of Vienna, which did everything I stood in his power to stop him confess Orthodoxy him. Pious and he gave his soul to Christ in prison from Kufstein.
Saint Sophrony of Crow is another confessor who worried the authorities. Memoir in 1760, the congregation of Dej is the result of Hieromonk Sophronius, after which was obtained coming bishop Dionysius, the first Orthodox hierarch of Transylvanians after more than half a century.
The priest Moses Macinic from Sibiel, and Ioan from Gales are two other witnesses who have fought to defend the true faith. Over the years, the Chronic Radu Duma from Brasov remembered that in 1776, the priest John was visited in prison by a few merchants in Brasov. Father John told them that they would die there than to leave the orthodox faith.
The other priest, the priest confessor of Moses, came with her loyal Miclaus Oprea from Saliste the Empress Maria Theresa in the audience and Chancellor Kaunitz. In response to the memoir that the two have presented, mastery sent him in prison from Kufstein.
Along with them were many priests and believers, men, women and even children, who gave their life for their ancestral law. Some of them were killed or died after suffering, beaten, jailed or driven from their villages.
On October 21, the day of commemoration ordained Confessors Moses Macinic Sibiel and Ioan from Gales, and the Saint Pious Confessors Visarion, Sophrony and the Holy Martyr Oprea, to think of their faith, the struggle that took her for keeping Orthodoxy and then to the position where we stand us today in the confession of Christ.
But all remain psychology or even ideology unless we realize that their strength then was none other than the power of Christ, strengthened by the joy of his testimony. And today our weakness cannot have another cause than that we stand farther away from our parents God of “Spring incorruption, who sprang from the tomb of Christ, in whom we strengthen”.