Author(s): Gabriela Mircea,Doina Dreghiciu / Language(s): Romanian
Issue: 1 supp./2023
The study focuses, in particular, on the publication and historical commentary of some manuscript notes detached from the pages of two old Romanian book copies (Macarie Egipteanul, Omilii, Bucharest, 1775 and Liturghii, Sibiu, 1814), originating from the old collection of church prints of the non-united Church, with the patron saint “Assumption” from Şibot. The main attempt of the study is to profile the spiritual and intellectual structure of the duet of ministers of the respective Church, consisting of the priests Ioan Avram and Ioan Armean, who activated for several years together for the religious guidance of the non-united believers in Şibot, as well as their successors in the same clerical position, Avram Viorel and Ioan Viorel. Their existence and religious activity were directly, obviously, and intensively intersected, through their daily activity, in the decades from the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century (at least in the period 1789-1828, when, for sure, the first of the mentioned served, in tandem, as non-united priests, in the respective parish), both being also passionate readers and appraisers of the copy of the Bucharest Homilies from 1775, on the pages of which they left their notes. Similarly, partial information was recovered also regarding the activity of the other two priests, Avram Viorel and Ioan Viorel. The reconfiguration of some aspects of the clerical personalities is an opportunity to recall what was known so far about the past of a locality full of history, such as Şibot. Şibot remains immersed in ignorance, at least regarding the period 1789- 1828 (with some exceeding of its strict limits, up to 1869 or 1874), from several points of view, including the aspect of the actual local confessional realities, with the dramatic division of the inhabitants into non-united/Greek-Oriental and united/Greek-Catholic, existing during the 18th – 19th centuries, which the present study tries to clarify, to some extent.
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