Andrei Saguna and Monastic Establishments. From the Decay of Monasteries and People’s Excess of Faith (1799) to the Churches and Cells in Sinca Veche (1851)

This paper tackles the possibility/necessity to initiate/revive an applied discussion about the
relationship between Metropolitan Andrei Saguna and the monastic world.
Within this context, we invoke Sagunian documents but also documents dated
in the 18th century, after the obliteration of the Romanian Orthodox monastic
system in Transylvania, including the cannonading of monasteries, operation
ordered by the Court in Vienna and coordinated by general Bukow. They
refer to the Romanian opposition to this policy, especially in southern
Transylvania, in Saliste, Sibiu County.
We also publish a description, dated 1851, of a monastic assembly in
Tara Fagarasului, between the villages of Sinca Veche and Sinca Noua,
which was then deserted.
The documents published here belong to the collections of the Archive of
the Metropolitan See of Transylvania, which will celebrate 160 years since its
re-establishment in the autumn of 2009, the old one having been destroyed by
Hungarian armies during the conquest of Sibiu, in March 1849.