ABSTRACT

In the spring of 1743, the Phanariot Prince, Konstantine Mavrocordat, who had reigned eleven times in succession in Iaşi and separately in Bucharest (the capital of Wallachia), invited Carolus Péterffy, the famous Jesuit historian, to his domain, so that he could gather the documentary materials relevant to the history of the Principality and write its history.11 After this invitation was relayed to the Trnava Jesuit community, two members of the Cluj Jesuit house, Andreas Patai and Georgius Szegedi, joined the proposed expedition so that they might take up the spiritual care of the Moldavian Hungarian population, and with the support of the prince, initiate conversion efforts among the non-Catholic population, the overwhelming majority of whom were Romanian Orthodox.12 Constantine’s father Nicolae had been a

the rigorous education of the Society. Juhász (ed.), Moldvai, vol. 1, p. 45. 9 Pall, “Controversie,” p. 303. 10 Op. cit., p. 309. Note the seamless linking of the academic and educational work of the

Society. 11 Born in Bratislava, Péterffy never taught in Cluj, but was a colleague of Paulus

Kolosvári during his years in Trnava. Sommervogel et al., Bibliothèque, vol. 6, p. 617. 12 Szegedi had some knowledge of Romanian. ARSI, Aust. 103, Cat. I Coll. Claud. 1758,

folio 87; Stöger Scriptores, pp. 253-4. Patai had previously been a rector of the Cluj collegium.

despite the unpromising circumstances in which he had encountered it. In 1716, the Imperial forces that had invaded the Oltenia districts of Wallachia carried him off as a hostage to Sibiu and Alba Iulia. In Alba Iulia, the young prince had formed a close friendship with the Jesuits and maintained connections with them later, when from 1719 until 1730 (an exceptionally long period of time by Romanian standards) he ruled in Moldavia. This complex set of relationships solidified further when his son Constantine turned to the Hungarian Jesuits, asking them to write the history of the country, perhaps wishing to develop the notion of the connection between Romanian culture and Rome.