CTITORI ȘI BINEFĂCĂTORI AI BISERICILOR ȘI ȘCOLILOR CONFESIONALE ORTODOXE ȘI GRECO-CATOLICE DIN SCAUNELE SECUIEȘTI CIUC, GIURGEU, ODORHEI ȘI TREISCAUNE, ÎN SECOLUL AL XVIII-LEA ȘI PRIMA JUMĂTATE A SECOLULUI AL XIX-LEA

Abstract

The issue of the history of the Romanians from the former Szekler seats of Ciuc, Giurgeu, Odorhei and Treiscaune and of the main identity institutions – the church (Orthodox and Greek Catholic) and the confessional schools that functioned under the auspices of these churches has been little researched. Benefiting from access to ecclesiastical and secular documentary sources, little researched, the present study aims to introduce into the scientific circuit information about the state of places of worship and confessional schools built by members of some Romanian communities with a small number of members, most of them living in ethnically mixed localities, with a numerically majority Szekler/Hungarian population. In these conditions, an important role was played by the solidarity of the Romanians living on both sides of the Carpathians, who we find among the founders of the modest wooden churches, and after 1785, also of stone, and of the confessional school buildings. This solidarity was also manifested between the Romanian communities in the area. When a Romanian community, with a larger number of believers, managed to build a new church, the old one was donated to neighboring communities with few believers, thus witnessing the phenomenon called “traveling churches”. Where communities with a small number of Romanians have not managed to maintain their church, we witness the acceleration of the denationalization process and, finally, the disappearance of these communities. Instead, where it was possible to save the Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches and the confessional schools in the Romanian language, religion and school were the main factors promoting Christian teaching, religious education, Romanian culture and traditions, thus ensuring the perpetuation of the Romanian identity in -a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional area, in most cases refractory to alterity.