Die Dominikanerobservanten in Siebenbürgen am Beispiel des Bistritzer Konvents
The Dominican Observants in Transylvania, using the example of their Bistrița Convent

Summary/Abstract: The Dominican reform movement, which at the end of the 14th century endeavored to stop the decline of the order by reintroducing the strict observance of the rule and the constitutions, reached Transylvania in the fifth decade of the 15th century; that would be about a decade earlier than in the rest of the Hungarian Dominican Province. The information available to us indicates a two-stage reform, supported by observant preaching brothers from the Teutonia order. The first stage consisted of a failed attempt by Pope Eugene IV to reform the convents of the natio Transilvanica by the Basel preacher brother Jakob Rieher, who was appointed apostolic vicar in Transylvania on April 7, 1444. His mission was to strengthen the decayed spiritual life through sermons, to promote the reconstruction of the churches and monasteries destroyed by the Ottomans and to introduce reform in the Transylvanian religious houses2. A month later, the order of the Swiss friar was supported by a papal indulgence on May 26, 1444 for the Transylvanian religious houses that had suffered from the Turkish invasions, including the convents of Alba Iulia, Vințu de Jos, Sebeș, Sibiu and Bistrița.

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