Ștefan Meteș – the church historian from Ardeal

He studied theology and history at the Theological Institutes of Arad, Sibiu and Caransebeș, but also at the University of Bucharest, where he had as teachers Nicolae Iorga and Vasile Onciul: Nicolae Iorga, Dimitrie Onciul and Vasile Pârvan.

It was they who introduced the young Meteș to the secrets of historical research. He published in periodicals, supported by the great historian Iorga, and was ordained a priest in Boholt, Hunedoara County. After the First World War, he was already well known in the historians’ guild, being elected a member of the Romanian Academy and director of the National Archives in Cluj, which he directed until 1947. During this period he wrote the first synthesis of the ecclesiastical history of the Transylvanian Romanians. After the establishment of the communist regime, he was marginalised and removed from the Romanian Academy and imprisoned in 1950. It was only after his release from prison in 1957 that he was able to publish in church magazines. After 1972 he was partially rehabilitated for his scientific work and died in 1977.

(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Lumina Newspaper)