Conceptul de toleranţă religioasă şi metodologia Unirii în viziunea episcopului Grigorie Maior
The Concept of Religious Tolerance and Methodology of Union in the View of Bishop Grigorie Maior

Summary/Abstract: The conflict with Lutheran governor Samuel Brukenthal will be useful in a first phase to the positive image that the Greek-Catholic bishop Grigorie Maior had within the Roman ecclesiastical environment, meaning that the hierarch accused the governor before imperial and Roman authorities of impeding the spread of religious Union exactly for the fact that he was Lutheran. Nevertheless, both Roman authorities and the Viennese ones had a post-Tridentine conception referring to the way of easterners’ return to the Catholic Church. While the post-Tridentine spirit, developed from the relation of Catholic Church of Latin rite with confessions of Reformation, pretended individual conversions (based on freedom of conscience and understanding of dogmatic aspects), in exchange, Grigorie Maior was a supporter of mass returns and inspired from the line of the Florentine Synod. Then, these had to be followed – the prefect of the Congregation explained in 1774 – by catechisation and strengthening of the Greek-Catholic identity. Grigorie Maior requested the support of Nuncio Garampi by a memorial, on 5 December 1780, which included also an ample presentation of the method used in attracting the non-Uniates to Union. Analysis of this methodology of union reveals also the way in which tolerance was perceived by the bishop from Blaj.

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