BUCAREST, UNITED VICARIATE OF. — After the union with Rome that took place in Transylvania in the 1700s, the United Romanians had to be represented in B. [Bucharest], where their influence was felt in cultural institutions such as the Saint Sava College. As early as 1814, the Latin apostolic administrator requested an Eastern-rite priest from the United bishop of Blaj. One of his successors, the future Transylvanian bishop Radu, began the construction of a Romanian-United parish, which had to be built away from the main road. From 1903 to 1907, the parish was entrusted to a Latin priest. Later becoming a protopresbyterate or archdeaconry of B. for Romanian-rite Catholics, it was elevated to a vicariate in 1941 and entrusted to an former protopope invested with episcopal dignity, with jurisdiction over all the territories of the united metropolis of Făgăraș-Blaj situated outside Transylvania, namely Wallachia, Bukovina, Moldavia, and Dobruja. The persecution unleashed by the government in 1948 struck especially the Eastern-rite Catholics. Msgr. Attenie, vicar of B., was arrested (v. ROMANIA).
For the dissident Romanian patriarchate V. ROMANIA.