Fodor György - Török József - Tusor Péter (szerk.): Felekezetek az Igazság szolgálatában: történelem, teológia, önazonosság (1500-2000) - Studia Theologica Budapestinensia 34. (2009)

I. Catholic-Orthodox symbiosis in Transylvania (Katolikus-ortodox együttélés Erdélyben) - Ioan Chirila: Tolerance and intolerance in t he Transylvanian legislative corpora (the 16th-19th centuries)

the character of compulsoriness. Thus, the text of the Romanians’ Memorandum1R of the year 1892 testifies the fact that, during the years following 1868, the Hungarian legislation stipulated that the teachers of the confessional schools should be obliged to learn the Hungarian language, if they wanted to keep their office. As a result of this stipulation, the confessional schools ceased to be centers of culture and became centers for propagating the Hungarian language. Because it was not possible that the pupils from the villages learn a foreign language in the popular school, in 1891 was promulgated the law regarding the asylums for children, a law which compelled the children, starting with the age of 3, to learn the Hungarian language. The text of the Memorandum specifies that this law was ratified despite the protests of the other nationalities (except the Hungarian one) within the Hungarian territory.16 17 18

With all the efforts of educating the Romanian people and of instructing some persons in the famous education establishments of the West, the Romanians are not accepted in the public offices and, while they observe how the government wants to suppress their cultural aspirations, they are obliged to withdraw from the public life of their country. The Memorandum asserts that the foreign domination do wrong to all others but Hungarians, so that the Romanians are aggrieved in the Court of Law, by the administrative apparatus, as well as in the other spheres of the public life.1” The Hungarian authorities annul even the freedom of expression

16 Pompiliu TEODOR, Livin MAIOR, Nicolae BOG§AN, §erban POLVEREJAN, Doni RadOSAV and Toader NlCOARÄ, The Memorandum, 1892-1894. Ideology and Romanian political action, the second edition, with a Foreword by Ion RATIU, Ed. “Progresul Românesc”, Bucharest 1994.

17 Ibidem, p. 321-322: “The Church and the school have remained the only spheres of the common life in which, due to the paternal care of Your Majesty, Romanians thought that their freedom of national development is still protected. But in the years following 1868, the Hungarian legislation stipulated that the teachers of the confessional schools should be obliged to learn the Hungarian language, if they wanted to keep their office.

18 Ibidem, p. 321-322: “Governed by people who considers him a foreigner and who is also considered by him foreign, the Romanian is not welcome either in the Court of Law, in the administrative area or in the other spheres of the public life, and finds to no one comfort, nowhere justice. And this happens especially because, with all the permissive stipulations of the law regarding the equal rights, in the public life the language of the people is disregarded, if someone is not Hungarian”.

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