Grigore Maior

Grigore Maior
Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church
Church Romanian Greek Catholic Church
Diocese Diocese of Făgăraş
Appointed 8 March 1773
Term ended 13 March 1782
Predecessor Atanasie Rednic
Successor Ioan Bob
Orders
Ordination 25 Dec 1745 (Priest)
Consecration 23 April 1773 (Bishop)
by Vasilije Božičković
Personal details
Birth name Gavrila Maior
Born 1715
Sărăuad, Szatmár County
Died February 1785 (aged 69–70)
Alba Iulia

Gavrila Grigore Maior, O.S.B.M. (1715–7 February 1785) was Bishop of Făgăraş and Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church from 1773 to his resignation in 1782.

Life

Gavrila Maior was born in 1715, in Sărăuad, Szatmár County (Transylvania). He studied at Cluj and later from 1740 in the College of the Propaganda, Rome where he on 28 January 1747 got a doctorate in theology and philosophy.[1] He entered in the Basilian monastery of the Holy Trinity in Blaj taking the name of Grigore, and on 25 December 1745 he was ordained a priest.[2] He taught languages (Latin and Hungarian) in Blaj.[3]

On 30 June 1764, following the death of the Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, the bishop of Făgăraş Petru Pavel Aron, the electoral synod convened and Maior resulted the more voted. Nevertheless the Hasburg monarch, Empress Maria Theresa, designated Atanasie Rednic as new bishop. Maior, unhappy he was not appointed bishop, murmured against the appointment of Rednic. For this reason András Hadik, the commander of the Habsburg army in Transylvania, imprisoned Maior in Sibiu for three and a half months, and later confined him in the monastery of Mukachevo. In 1771 Maior pleaded Emperor Joseph II, who was visiting the monastery, and succeeded to be released and started to work as censor of books in Vienna.[4]

Church of St. Peter and Paul in Sibiu founded by Grigore Maior

At the death of Rednic, the electoral synod, on 15 August 1772, again voted for Maior, who this time was designed also by the Empress on 27 October 1772 and appointed by Pope Clement XIV on 8 March 1773. His consecration as Bishop took place on 23 April 1773 in a chapel of the imperial palace in Vienna, by the hands of the Croat Vasilije Božičković.[4][5] Empress Maria Theresa was present to the ceremony and was very impressed by the beauty rituals of the Byzantine rite and by Major's speech, to who the Empress bestowed a golden cross and a valuable ring.

As Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church he sent many students to study in university abroad and he worked hard for the expansion of the Church, obtaining in the first two years the joining of a considerable number of new villages. These efforts created resentment at him by Protestants and Orthodox who complained at the imperial court. He also sided for the social claims of the Revolt of Horea, Cloşca and Crişan.[4] For these reasons he was forced to resign, as he did on 13 March 1782.

He died in a monastery in Alba Iulia on 7 February 1785.[3]

Notes

  1. ↑ Ritzler, Remigius (1958). "Fogariensis". Hierarchia catholica Medii aevi sive summorum pontificum, S.R.E. cardinalium, ecclesiarum antistitum series. 6. Padua. p. 218.
  2. ↑ "Bishop Grigore Maior, O.S.B.M.". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
  3. 1 2 Capros, Carol (1998). "Episcopul Grigore Maior". Biserica Română Unită două sute cincizeci de ani de istorie. 1. Cluj-Napoca. pp. 48–50. ISBN 973-9288-11-1.
  4. 1 2 3 "Episcopul Grigore Maior". BRU. Retrieved 11 April 2011.
  5. ↑ at the time Byzantine vicar of the Latin Bishop of Zagreb, and from 1777 first bishop of the Eparchy of Križevci
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