Horvat, Irina Liuba: Icoane din colecţia Muzeului Judeţean Satu Mare (Satu Mare, 2014)
Introduction
worship. Greek Catholics were generally very poor contributing little to support the priests and even to the bishop, as shown in the data of parish payment. For us, it is particularly interesting in the document where is noted that, during the days of the itinerary visit in 1751, starting on May 11 in the county of Borsod, Zemplén and Abauj, on June the 6th Bishop Olsavszky together with his suite, passing Tisa in Szabolcs county where the visiting of the Szolnok parish started, ending his journey to the monastery and parish of Máriapócs. On June 23 we find him already at Carei, and arriving only on July 23 to Negreşti - Oas, the document proves that Olsavszky crossed the area on his way to Cămârzana and heading to Ugocea and Maramureş. He enjoyed a well-deserved prestige, the proof being the owner of the place, the Count Ferenc Károlyi, welcomed him with full honors, at the castle of Carei and also at the one in Ardud. As an evidence on the special relationship between the bishop and Count Ferenc Károlyi are documents relating to the Greek priest - Catholic of Nyíregyháza and especially that the land of the monastery of Máriapócs is donated entirely by Count Károlyi (doc. 43 and 64) who donated as well the Roman - Catholic church of liba, whose owner he was, to the Greek-Catholic religion (doc. 61). From the reports that Bishop Michael Olsavszky sent to the Locumtenential Council and to the Imperial Court (doc. 33) it is being noticed that the bishop is trying to change realities found in the field. What is the reason that Bishop Michael Olsavszky grossly faked the numbers of Greek Catholics in his whole diocese, we can not know with certainty? We can only assume that these fictional numbers, too much reduced, were some arguments in favor of his aid applications submitted to the Locumtenential Council or the Imperial Court? There are also some other fake documents made by the bishop in the official report. For example Olsavszky reports only 16 apostates (previous to reformed religion), but there are 36 apostates98 recorded during the visitation. The examples could go on! We can only note that the bishop Olsavszky fits perfectly into the spirit of the age in which that trend of false reporting existed no matter how many efforts had been made by the Vienna Court to rectify the situation. Only toward the end of the eighteenth century, by building of a paid professional county-level officials, the Court begins to receive real data from territory! Many documents from the beginning of the decade six of the eighteenth century concerns Maramureş county where there was a particularly tense situation, created especially by vicar Andrei Bacsinszky, who was practicing a systematic policy of extortion of priests through exorbitant fines, abusive confiscation, imprisoning priests who were against, demeaning corporal punishment99 (doc. 26). So some priests better refuge in the mountains and forests than to appear before the vicar! (doc. 16). It is for sure that not all the priests always behaved as they should have. There were some who were practicing all kinds of magical rituals, such as priest loan Pop from Leordina who was also accused of adultery (doc. 4). A large number of priests were bigamists, married three times or one was even to his fourth marriage! It should also be noted that their theological was not the best one, especially in terms of Catholic doctrine. Finally, in July 1754, Bishop Michael Olsavszky had vicar Andrei Bacsinszky being replaced by Daniel Havrilovics (doc. 36) and moving it to the Haidudorog parish. Viorel Ciubotă, Villages and priests p. 104. "About a part of the acts committed by Bacsinszky also check Viorel Ciubotă, Liuba Horvat, A document from 1749 about monasteries in Maramureş, in Satu Mare. Studies and Communications, XXVIII/II, 2012, p. 21-32. 23
