Între reformă și disidența ortodoxă: retorica vizitației canonice a episcopului Aron în parohiile greco-catolice hațegane în anul 1759
Between Reform and Orthodox Dissent: The Rethoric of the Canonic visit of Bishop Aron in the Haţeg Greek catholic Parishes of 1759

Summary/Abstract: The episode of interfaith tensions triggered during the first months of 1759 by the sermons delivered by the bishop of Făgăraș, Petru Pavel Aron, in a few villages across the district of Hațeg has made the object of contemporary ample narratives. Vexed by the cohabitation strategies in place in the mixed communities, which meant the common use of the sacred spaces by both Calvinists and Greek Catholics, the Uniate eparch instigated his followers to occupy the respective churches and remove all objects pertaining to the Protestant tradition. Not without its climax of physical violence, the confrontation also had a significant component of rhetoric, as it was used alternatively by the historians of the two communities to indicate either the assault of the Catholic elites in Habsburg Transylvania against the Reformed faithful (Péter Bod), or the heroic attitude of the bishop who wanted to raise his fellow nationals from the subordinate condition they had been reduced to (Samuil Micu). By arguing in favour of counting the Orthodox opponents against church union with Rome as the third element of the dispute, the article inquires on how Bishop Aron reacted both during and after the events. My approach builds on a series of contemporary unpublished accounts submitted to the court in Vienna, now housed in various archives across the former Monarchy. On the one hand, they corroborate unequivocally the main stages of the unfolding of the religious dispute. At the same time though, the few conflicting details serve to question the Greek Catholic recital concerning the miraculous intervention of the Virgin Mary, who was said to have saved the life of the prelate at the time, pointing to a later elaboration of the whole story. The reading that I suggest thus attempts to determine the reasons behind Bishop Aron’s confrontational attitude in Hațeg and those later responsible for the creation of a distorted remembrance over the facts among the Greek Catholics in Transylvania.

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