"Omnes viae Varsaviam ducunt"/"Minden út Varsóba vezet" : A moldvai és erdélyi örmény missziók ügye a 17. század utolsó harmadában (1668-1691)

Nagy, Kornél (2025) "Omnes viae Varsaviam ducunt"/"Minden út Varsóba vezet" : A moldvai és erdélyi örmény missziók ügye a 17. század utolsó harmadában (1668-1691). TÖRTÉNELMI SZEMLE, 67 (1). pp. 51-80. ISSN 0040-9634

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Abstract

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the ecclesiastical affairs and missions related to Catholics in Moldavia and Transylvania were administered by the Apostolic Holy See primarily through the Apostolic Nunciature to Warsaw. Among other things, this ecclesiastical office was also responsible for the organisation of the missions among the Apostolic (Eastern) Armenians in Crimea, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Moldavia, and Transylvania in the Early Modern Period. At the same time, it is also an indisputable fact that the Armenian Uniate (Catholic) priest-missionary, Oxendio Virziresco (1654−1715), born in Moldavia, and later bearing the title of titular bishop (in partibus infidelium) of Aladia in Hibernia, gained undying merit in the Catholicisation of the Armenians who fled to Transylvania from the territory of the Principality of Moldavia and Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth between 1668 and 1672. Based upon the large number of archival sources uncovered so far, the scholarship learned that in the autumn of 1685 he single-handedly undertook the organisation of the missions among the Armenians living in Transylvania and Moldavia at the behest of the Apostolic Holy See, and, further on, all steps and actions that led to the church-union of the Armenians in Transylvania with Rome can be attributed exclusively to him. However, the research in recent years has somewhat tinged this scholarly approach. Therefore, with the help of sources recently emerged from the archives, this article attempts to investigate the issue of the missionary organisation among the Armenians in Transylvania and Moldavia in the last third of the 17th century. In ad dition, this study also intends to examine whether Oxendio Virziresco him self was indeed only the first and only candidate to carry out this missionary activity in Moldavia and Transylvania in the afore-mentioned period.

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