Perspectivă istoriografică asupra protopopiatului ortodox de Alba Iulia - sec. XVII-XX
A Historiographic Perspective on the District of the Orthodox Archpriest of Alba Iulia – from the 17th Century to the 20th Century

Summary/Abstract: In the hierarchical system of organisation of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the districts of the archpriests have kept the major importance that they have had from the beginning of their functioning as subsidiary organs of ruling of the bishops in the administrative matters of the Church. The district of the archpriest of Alba Iulia had a special status among the Transylvanian districts of the archpriests due to the historical, political, cultural and religious importance of the city in which this institution had its home. Nevertheless, historiography does not record until this day but one monographic work dedicated to this institution, which takes into regard the period between the years 1918 and 1940. This work, beyond the enlarged informational content that it offers in comparison to the studies and the articles dedicated to the archpriests from that period – a plus of information that it had obtained from the research of the archives -, suffers from slight imprecision and, especially, from inconsistency; both excusable due to the level of research. Otherwise, a few local researchers have dedicated studies and articles to similar themes to the one discussed here: Ana Dumitran (17th century), Eva Mârza (17th and 18th centuries), Doina Dreghiciu (17th and 18th centuries), Alin Albu (17th and 18th centuries), Nicolae Dănilă (18th century), Gabriela Mircea (18th century) and Nicolae Josan (19th century). Only four of these authors sign monographic studies: Eva Mârza, Doina Dreghiciu, Gabriela Mircea and Alin Albu. The articles signed by Alexandru Baba, Romul Joantă and Niculiţă Pascu are also monographic approaches that, however, constitute themselves into general presentations, without bringing any considerable scientific contribution because they were not written by specialists. Under these circumstances, aggravated by the fact that the bibliographic inconsistency is often doubled by the lack of documentation, the attempt to recreate the history of the district of the archpriest of Alba Iulia and the biographies of some important personalities that have been the owners of this distinction presupposes a very hard work.

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