CONSIDERATION REGARDING THE MOVEMENT OF VISARION SARAI

The upheaval of the monk Visarion Sarai is the most representative religious movement within the Romanina space. That determined us to analyse it and to opinate on it, along with other historians. This movement stands for the answer of the Orthodox Christians from Tranylvania to the politics of Counter- reform and Catholic Reform of the Habsburg authorities. Together with the penetration of the Reform in Transylvania, the popular belief of the Romanians from Ardeal has been hindered by the renewing measures of the Calvinists. The cult of the icons, the fasting and certain customs were affected. After the reintegration in the Habsburg space the old rite has been reintroduced, even in the newly founded United Church. A question arises: why, since the involvement of the Calvinists in the belief of the masses, towards which Romanians manifested a great sensitivity, and until 1744 there were no religious movements of such span and intensity? We believe that the reaction was determined by the Bishopric of Karlowitz. Although the Serb Metropolitan system did not admit this, certain documentary testimonies, to which mass psychology specific arguments add up, prove this truth.