Romanian?

The Romanian Greek-Catholic Church emerged in 1700 when a large section of the Orthodox population of Transylvania entered into communion with the Holy See, led by their bishop, Metropolitan Atanasie Anghel. At the time Transylvania was under the political control of the Kingdom of Hungary and of its Roman Catholic Hapsburg rulers. The Metropolitan's residence was moved from Alba Iulia to Făgăras in 1721 and then, in 1737 to Blaj, which became a centre of learning and national awakening for all Romania, most of which remained under Ottoman rule. It was the Greek-Catholic Church in Transylvaia, for example, that championed the use of vernacular liturgical texts. When, in the 19th century, Hungary followed a Magyarization policy, the Greek-Catholic Church played a prominent part in resisting ethnic assimilation, with (the Transylvanian School) Şcoala Ardeleană and the Transylvanian Memorandum.

Beginning in 1948, Romanian Catholics found themselves among the most severely persecuted Christians in the Soviet world. Although the Church in Transylvania numbered about one million at the time, the communist regime declared the Greek-Catholic Church illegal and its property confiscated. All the bishops were arrested and tortured. Most were martyred, as were innumerable priests, monks, nuns and lay faithful. The Church re-emerged from the catacombs after the fall of the Ceausescu communist regime in 1989 and has begun, with the help of God, to rebuild itself. In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI recognized the self-governing status of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, raising its traditional Head, the Metropolitan of Alba-Iulia and Făgăras to the rank of Major Archbishop.

Large-scale Romanian immigration to the United States began in the late nineteenth century. Most migrants were attracted to the large industrial centers of the Midwest. Following the typical pattern of Eastern-Europeans in America, migrant communities formed their own parishes and invited clergy from the "old country" to serve them. In 1982 Pope John Paul II sought to provide for the pastoral needs of American Romanian Catholics and appointed them their first Exarch. In 1987 the exarchate was raised to the status of a full diocese (eparchy) with its cathedral in Canton, Ohio. The territory of the eparchy is the entire United States, and comprises today 14 parishes, 4 missions and two monasteries. It is, therefore, the smallest in population terms of the four Catholic jurisdictions in the United States of the Byzantine Rite (the other three being the Ukrainian, Ruthenian and Melkite Catholic Churches).