Classic Books of Western Spirituality Translated into the Romanian Greek-Catholic Religious Environment and Published in the Printing House of Blaj (1747–1948)

In the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, at every level there was an imperative need for a soul renewal movement. Responding to this need, the Greek-Catholic Church translated or adapted several classic authors of Western Catholic spirituality: Imitation of Christ by the German monk Thomas de Kempis (1387–1471), selected works of the Italian Saint Alfonso Maria de Liguori (16961787), the French Saint François de Sales (1567–1622), Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort (1763–1716) and of Saint Therese of Lisieux (1873–1897), the Spanish Alfonso Rodriguez S.J. (1533–1617), and others. The study will capture the influence of the Catholic religious literature paradigm in the Greek-Catholic Romanian environment, and will identify the motivations of such actions, the protagonists involved, the impact that the translationsfrom the Latin Catholic ascetic-mystical literature had on the spiritual life of the believers. We will find that the motivations of the translation effort are related to both the spiritual edification of the believers and the identity aspect, the connection to the universal spiritual theological heritage. Moreover, in all fields of activity there was a current of development of the links between Romania and Europe. We notice that those who perceived the need for translation, who identified the target works and those who had the theological and philological skills necessary for translation were the elite clerics, with specialized studies abroad, employed in the central church structures. Since the works are specific to Western spirituality, we note that they were not merely translated, but processed or adapted to the Eastern Romanian sensibility.