MAIOR, Pre-TRU. - A Catholic (Uniate) Romanian priest, born in 1754, the third of the three great masters and luminaries (Luceferi) who founded the "school" of Latinists in Transylvania. He studied at Blaj and at the Jesuit College in Cluj, then in Rome from 1774 to 1779, and finally in Vienna. Upon returning to Transylvania, he became a professor at Blaj and, from 1785, protopope at Reghin. From 1809 he was censor of Romanian books printed in Budapest, where he remained until his death in 1821.
He wrote: *Istoria pentru începutul Românilor în Dacia*, in which he argues for the total disappearance of the Dacian element in that region after Trajan’s wars of conquest, and for the continuity in Dacia, despite the invasions, of a pure Roman element; in *Istoria bisericii Românilor* he demonstrates the Latin origin of Romanian Christianity both north and south of the Danube; with *Ortografia română sau latină valachică*, written in Latin, he proves the descent of the Romanian language from Vulgar Latin and contributes to the adoption of Latin orthography for Romanian. He also collaborated on the Romanian-Hungarian-German lexicon published in Buda in 1825.