Marčanska biskupija
Marča Bishoprie

Habsburgs, Orthodoxy, and Church Union in Croatian-Slavonian Military Borders (1611-1755)

Author(s): Zlatko Kudelić
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, History, Cultural history, History of Church(es), Political history, Modern Age, Theology and Religion, 17th Century, 18th Century, Eastern Orthodoxy
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: Gabrijel Mijakić; Catholic Church; Svidnica; Vlachs; Greek Catholic (Uniate) Dioecese of Marča; Orthodox Christianity; Ottoman-Habsburg War; Patriarch of Peć
Summary/Abstract: The Greek Catholic (Uniate) Dioecese of Marča (called “Svidnica” by the Vienna Court and “Platearum” by the Roman Curia) was established in 1611, when Greek Catholic Bishop Simeon Vratanja was consecrated in Rome. He assumed obligation to unite Orthodox frontiersmen (Vlachs) of the Croatian and Slavonian Military Border and other Orthodox Christians in the Hungarian- Croatian Kingdom with the Catholic Church. In order to become a Greek Catholic or Uniate bishop, Simeon had to accept decrees issued by the Council of Trent, and especially to recognize the primacy of the Roman pope, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, the existence of Purgatory and the use of unleavened bread in liturgy. Although the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom was declaratively pronounced as Bishop Simeon’s jurisdictional territory, in fact his jurisdiction spread predominantly over the Croatian and Slavonian Military Border, where the Orthodox Vlachs had been settled ever since the late sixteenth century. The monastery of St. Michael in Marča in the Varaždin Generalcy (the Slavonian Military Border) became the see of a new Greek Catholic eparchy. Having analyzed available sources about Simeon’s prelacy, the author concludes that motives and circumstances of Simeon’s acceptance of union with the Catholic Church cannot be clearly recognizable, and that the majority of the Orthodox population in the Military Border did not accept union with the Catholic Church in the spring of 1611, as some historians have previously claimed.

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