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- Title
SOLUȚIONAREA UNEI SITUAȚII DE CRIZĂ MORALĂ ÎN DOBÂRCA (DOBRING), O COMUNITATE DIN SUD-ESTUL TRANSILVANIEI. CONSIDERAȚII PE MARGINEA UNUI "PROTOCOL DE JUDECATĂ" (PFARRÄMTLICHES GERICHTS-PROTOCOLL, 1840).
- Authors
Grancea, Mihaela
- Abstract
The Augustan Evangelical Church was influenced by Joseph's and the pre-fortyeighters' reformism. Joseph's regulations regarding the Evangelical church had aimed at increasing state control over this denomination and eliminating the church's social influence. This fact was reinforced by issuing a fundamental document with the role of religious status Die allerhöchst begnehmigte Vorschrift Die die Konsistorien der Augsburger Konfessions-verwandten in Siebenbürgen/The Uppermost Instruction Approved by the Consistories of the Augustan Denomination Believers from Transylvania (1807), a status that had been valid until the forty-eighter's revolution; the church's dependency towards the state had become a fact. Parish consistories (composed of the priest and the lay members of the Altschaft, the president of a rural consistory being the vicar) had only locally limited obligations, such as: organizing the religious services within the parish organization, supervision of church order and discipline, religiousness and morality of the community; school supervision; budget and religious heritage management. Social control was a goal for both the state and the church. Since the Tridentine matrimonial decrees, churchmen had been considered agents of the moral reform, of the social discipline. In this context, any form of hedonism and norm override produced exaggerated reactions, the involvement of ecclesiastical legal and administration elements, and, finally, attracted public opprobrium. Adultery was considered "an abominable phenomenon" that denied the sacred nature of matrimony, from the church's perspective. Protestant churches do not treat marriage as being sacred, thus marital infidelity is not a tragedy with fatal consequences from its perspective. However, the need for social harmony and discipline, worship and ethics of the family and the need to preserve family heritage led to the condemnation of adultery, especially when one of the actors of the illicit relationship was a clergyman. In mixed communities, such as the Dobarca, achieving mixed marriages was not an impossible event, especially among farmers with lower social and economic status. In the rural settlements from south-eastern Transylvania in the 19th century, ethnic-cultural mixed communities living together was a reality, especially evident during local events that questioned the moral, religious and social traditions. Community vulnerability and the "scandal" as a disruptive event were evident in the case of such settlements, especially in the context of (public) allegations of adultery. We propose an episode of micro-history occasioned by the discovery of a "trial protocol" in the archives, for scientific reasons. In 1840, the village Dobarca "roared" regarding an alleged adultery committed by the evangelical preacher Daniel Schuster and the Romanian Mary, "daughter of Theodore Miller". Her husband was a local peasant named "Wassel Karotte". He complained to the higher ecclesiastical authorities (the Dean) against the preacher, but also asked for permission to divorce the unfaithful wife. The episode occasioned a "trial protocol" (Pfarrämtliches Gerichts-Protocoll), the first file of the document we studied (also comprising witnesses' testifies), the file also contains citations, several official letters and private mail. Although some of the documents are incomplete or contain illegible fragments, we managed to reenact the scandal and the trial it produced, despite the fact that the investigation and the trial lasted several months, from October 1840 to March 1841. The witnesses' testimonies were confused, timid, elusive, making any conclusion somehow distant and ambiguous. The "trial protocol" reflects the problematic nature of human relationships, the moral degradation within the Evangelical church and the Transylvanian rural communities before the renewal after the revolution of 1848 -- 1849, the relation between the local church institutions and the secular authorities. The case also proves the liberalization of the moral laws within rural areas, the insecurity of the priest's status, the simple man's fear of being involved in juridical events, the ethno-cultural mix, and the malfunctions of a normative society in the context of the reorganization of the Evangelical Church. In conclusion, we do not know the fate of preacher Daniel Schuster and do not wish to launch any hypotheses. However, we believe that he was removed from the clergy. After the reform, it was not punishment, but rather ethics, control and social discipline enforced through rules that were assumed and turned into social reflexes within German communities. The most agreed behavior rules (Zucht) were: moderation, respect for hierarchy (which could have been confused with obedience), defending dignity, and the power of example. Regarding priests' morals, ecclesiastical discipline, considering the evolution of the Augustan Evangelical community life, Articuli de pastorum vita et moribus (1574) had always been valid, the priest had to lead a honorable life, to be a faith model, to resist all "temptations", to respect the institution of marriage. Achieving social harmony ideology by applying the concepts of order and social discipline was a constant in the existence of this church.
- Publication
Banatica, 2015, Vol 24, Issue 2, p343
- ISSN
1222-0612
- Publication type
Article