Formația clerului greco-catolic la începutul secolului al XIX-lea: spre constituirea unei categorii elitare?

1 February 2010


Authors
Daniel Dumitran
Pages
129-168
Abstract

At the beginning of the second decade of the XIXth century, the curriculum from the Theologic Seminary from Blaj included subjects such as canon law, dogmatic theology, moral theology, biblical hermeneutics, ecclesiatical history of the New Testament etc, which were thaught by canon capitular Vasile Filipan, Dimitrie Caian junior, Gabriel Stoica, Dimitrie Vaida, Teodor Pop, and later on by Ioan Lemeni. All these were members of the secular clergy and had taken over, to a certain extent, educational attributions of the monks from the Basilian order, that were fulfilled especially during the last two decades of the previous century. Their ascension reflects an important modification in the level of the managing structure of the GreekCatholic Church (gradual replacement of the close elite of monastic affiliation with a secular one, equally narrow) whose motivations and implications of institutional nature were still analyzed. This study attempts to reveal significations and cultural consequences of their activity, more exactly the manner by which the remembered subjects were taught, the content of textbooks and reference authors whom they appealed to. The possibility of exerting some influence from the formation programmes of the clergy drawn up in the university centers of the Empire in the second half of the XVIIIth century constitutes the frame of the analysis, as the initial content of theological education is related to development of theology and its teaching in the extra-Carpathian Principalities. As far as consequences are concerned, it is revealed the continuity of the educative measures, by the activity of other teachers from the next decade, entitled to justify the assumption of constructing an elite clerical category.

Keywords
theological studies; clergy formation; dogmatic and moral theology; hermeneutics; clerical elite