Grigore Maior

Gavrila Grigore Maior (1715–1785) was Bishop of Făgăraş and Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church from 1773 to his resignation in 1782.

Life

Gavrila Maior was born in 1715, in Sărăuad, Szatmár County (Transylvania). He studied at Cluj and later from 1740 in the College of the Propaganda, Rome where he on 28 January 1747 got a doctorate in theology and philosophy. He entered in the Basilian monastery of the Holy Trinity in Blaj taking the name of Grigore, and on 25 December 1745 he was ordained a priest. He taught languages (Latin and Hungarian) in Blaj.

On 30 June 1764, following the death of the Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, the bishop of Făgăraş Petru Pavel Aron, the electoral synod convened and Maior resulted the more voted. Nevertheless the Hasburg monarch, Empress Maria Theresa, designated Atanasie Rednic as new bishop. Maior, unhappy he was not appointed bishop, murmured against the appointment of Rednic. For this reason András Hadik, the commander of the Habsburg army in Transylvania, imprisoned Maior in Sibiu for three and a half months, and later confined him in the monastery of Mukachevo. In 1771 Maior pleaded Emperor Joseph II, who was visiting the monastery, and succeeded to be released and started to work as censor of books in Vienna.