BUCAREST, VICARIATO UNITO di. - After the union with Rome that took place in 1700 in Transylvania, the united Romanians were to be represented in B., where their influence was felt in cultural institutions, such as the College of S. Sava. As early as 1814 the Latin apostolic administrator requested a priest of the Eastern rite 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 road. From 1903 to 1907 the parish was entrusted to a Latin priest. Having subsequently become a protopresbyterate or archdeaconry of
B. for Catholics of the Romanian rite, it was in 1941 raised to a vicariate and entrusted to a former protopresbyter, invested with episcopal dignity and jurisdiction over all the territories of the united metropolis of Fagaras-Blaj located outside Transylvania, namely Wallachia, Bukovina, Moldavia, and Dobrudja. The persecution unleashed by the government in 1948 especially struck Catholics of the Eastern rite. Mons. Aftenie, vicar of B., was arrested (v. ROMANIA).
For the dissident Romanian patriarchate V. ROMANIA, Federico Tsililcz