What question did this study set out to answer?

This paper aims to explore the influence of the Greek Catholic community in Bucharest on Romanian nation-building during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

May 5, 2026

Transylvania in Bucharest: The Greek Catholic Presence in the Romanian Kingdom as a Window onto Religion and Nation-Building

Key Points

This paper aims to explore the influence of the Greek Catholic community in Bucharest on Romanian nation-building during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Analyzed historical events involving the Greek Catholic church construction in Bucharest.
Examined the role of Bishop Iuliu Hossu in the 1918 Union Declaration and his defense of the concordat with the Vatican in 1929.
Investigated the cultural significance of Greek Catholic public presence during national celebrations.
Highlighted the Greek Catholic church's impact on national identity in Bucharest during the 1918 Union celebration.
Demonstrated Bishop Hossu's significant influence as a religious leader in political matters, particularly during the parliamentary defense of the concordat.
Revealed diminishing public support for the Greek Catholic church by 1929 amid changing political dynamics.

Abstract

The study of Greek Catholics is often limited to the region of Transylvania, the birthplace of Romanian Greek Catholicism. This paper examines several instances of Romanian Greek Catholic presence in public spaces outside Transylvania, specifically in Bucharest, during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the construction of a Greek Catholic church in Bucharest, as well as the four-man delegation that presented the 1918 Union Declaration to King Ferdinand, which included Iuliu Hossu, the Greek Catholic bishop of Gherla. Hossu’s remarks at a banquet with the prime minister lent a sacred, specifically Greek Catholic aura to the celebration of the Union, which was received and welcomed as such by the prime minister. Nevertheless, only a decade later, in 1929, the same Bishop Hossu would have to energetically defend on the floor of the Romanian Parliament the project of a concordat with the Vatican. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ .

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