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Stefan Stefanowicz Roszka and the Armenian Catholic Church in Transylvania

Nagy, Kornél · 2025

Stefan Stefanowicz Roszka (1670–1739), a graduate of the Collegium Urbanum in Rome, was remembered by Transylvania's Armenian community as a good shepherd, and by older Hungarian and Polish historiography as the man who stamped out 'Eastern heresy' and reconverted the Armenians to Catholicism. Nagy shows that modern scholarship has badly undercut that myth. Drawing on previously undiscovered documents from archives in Alba Iulia, Budapest, Esztergom, Rome, Venice, Vienna and the Vatican, he argues that Roszka's real work was to protect the Armenians and their Uniate church from an increasingly aggressive Latinisation policy pushed by the Roman Catholic bishopric of Transylvania.

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Published in
Revue des Études Arméniennes, Vol. 43 (2025), pp. 427–469 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/REA.43.0.3295033
Year
2025
Language
English
DOI
10.2143/REA.43.0.3295033

Citation

Nagy, Kornél 2025. Stefan Stefanowicz Roszka and the Armenian Catholic Church in Transylvania. Revue des Études Arméniennes, Vol. 43 (2025), pp. 427–469 (Peeters); DOI 10.2143/REA.43.0.3295033. https://doi.org/10.2143/REA.43.0.3295033

What this offers a reader

For students

A diaspora community defending its own rite against the church it had joined.

For academics

Multi-archival study of a largely unexplored field of Armenian church history.

For the community

Even in union with Rome, our people fought to keep their own rite.

For a general reader

How the Armenians of Transylvania resisted being absorbed into the Latin church.

Topics

Armenian Catholic ChurchUniate ArmeniansTransylvanian Armenian diasporaLatinisationPropaganda Fideeighteenth-century church history

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