Horvat, Irina Liuba: Icoane din colecţia Muzeului Judeţean Satu Mare (Satu Mare, 2014)
Introduction
to so many priests? Perhaps some were dismissed and others went voluntarily elsewhere, more favorable! Resuming the years 1760-1761, we see that Bishop Michael Olsavszky, using the secular power managed to save religious union without too much loss, ensuring the victory without recourse to Greek Catholicism in this part of the country for the next 200 year old. What is more important is that the bishop and the Imperial Court they did learn from these events, also proposing solutions to solve the problems. They all agree that the main way to solve all the evils was the establishment of schools and providing the necessary instruction primarily for the village leaders, first the priests, as evidenced so clearly in the statement that the bishop forward in early 1762 to the Imperial Court, ”boninimiru<m> instituendi Parochi et iuventus a teneris in Scholisliteris et doctrina Christiana imbuatur...”138). And from the other letters that Olsavszky sent to the high society officials of the Habsburg Empire appears the idea of teaching the youth as the foundation of promoting and strengthening the religious union. ”lt was when the Bishop understood that the fate of his church is closely linked not only to the quality performance of all clergy, but also the existence of a fully trained, faithful union and society influence."139 Note on the edition This volume represents a synthesis realized due to the funds of Diocese of Mukachevo (fund 151 file 1683-1782) and the Basilian monastery ”St Nicholas” in Mukachevo (fund 64) (file 326-491) between the years 1750-1762. Of the 568 files containing almost 4000 pages documents we selected 118 documents, mostly unique, inspiring and helping us to form an opinion on the Diocese of the fourth decade of the eighteenth century. As expected our attention turned to the visits of Bishop Michael Olsavszky conducted during 1750-1751 integrating in volume the parts regarding the counties of Satu Mare, Szabolcs and Maramureş. We also note that we left out, due to insufficient publishing space, the visit of Ugocea county which was published in the interwar period by Ruthenian V. Gadjega. The second point of interest was the action of Sophronie from Cioara in the counties of Maramureş and Satu Mare in the years 1760-1761 when the religious union crossed the hardest moment of all the eighteenth century. Here also the task was difficult because we had to select a small portion of the more than 100 documents related to this great movement with echoes all across the diocese. We hope that the selected papers will contribute to the development of historical knowledge. Finally we want to thank our partners of the State Archives of Transcarpathian region, without their great support and dedication the appearance of this volume would not have been possible: Mihail Misiuk, general director, Olena Kutassi, assistent director, Maria leremkina, head department, Marina Mihov, Larisa Leyte, Natalia lagudina, Sergei Vervarko, Clara Starkova, Jujana Kremer. Ibidem, dos. 1636, f. 1 139 O. Ghitta, Naşterea..., p. 347. And the files 1724 şi 1725 Archives of the Diocese including a lot of correspondence belonging to the Bishop with various Authorities for the establishment of Middle School in Sighet and Baia Mare and even Seini. 30
