Întemeierea episcopiei Transilvaniei: o perspectivă istoriografică
The foundation of the Bishopric of Transylvania: a historiographical analysis

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to verify the scholarly theories concerning the foundation of the medieval bishopric of Transylvania. It concentrates on three main issues: the time of foundation, the connection between the original residence of the bishops and their first properties, and the origin of the bishopric’s unusual name, which could be explained by a Greek Oriental tradition, according to some scholars. The foundation of the bishopric could eventually have been a long-lasting process, initiated by King Saint Stephen of Hungary in the first years of the eleventh century and finalized at the end of the same, or at the beginning of the following century, when the first cathedral of Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár, Weissenburg) was built and the first known Transylvanian bishop was mentioned. Because of the lack of sources, we don’t know if this process was a continuous one or not. There is no evidence for placing the first residence of the bishopric elsewhere then in Alba Iulia. The first certainly datable cathedral in Alba Iulia is not earlier than the end of the eleventh century, so it seems that initially in Transylvania a missionary bishopric functioned without a constant residence. This theory explains also the name of the bishopric. There is no evidence that a diocese of Greek rite existed in eleventh-century Transylvania.

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