Ioan Bob

Ioan Bob
Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church
Church	Romanian Greek Catholic Church
Diocese	Diocese of Făgăraş
Appointed	15 December 1783
Installed	2 July 1784
Term ended	2 October 1830
Predecessor	Grigore Maior
Successor	Ioan Lemeni
Orders
Ordination	8 April 1778 (Priest)
Consecration	6 June 1784 (Bishop) by Grigore Maior
Personal details
Born	1739 Orman, Cluj County
Died	2 October 1830 (aged 90–91) Blaj

Ioan Bob, (1739 – 2 October, 1830) was Bishop of Făgăraş and Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church from 1783 to his death in 1830.

Life

Ioan Bob was born from a noble Romanian family in October or November 1739 in Orman, near Iclod (Hungarian: Nagy-Iklód) in Kolozs County, now Romania. He attended the secondary schools by the Jesuits but fallen ill he could not enter in seminary. In 1764 he entered as novice in the Basilian monastery of Blaj. After some months, because he could not bear the strict discipline, he withdraw from the monastic life working simply as lay administrator of the monastery. In 1773 he was sent by his friend Bishop Grigore Maior to study in Trnava where he graduated in theology.^{[1] [2]} Returned to Romania, after a period of illness he moved to Blaj where on 25 December 1777 he was ordained a deacon and on 8 April 1778 a priest.^[3] He worked for some months in the diocesan chancery. In 1778 he was appointed Dean in Daia Română and in 1779 to Târgu Mureş.

In 1782 the Primate of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, the bishop of Făgăraş Grigore Maior, resigned. According to the praxis the electoral synod was convened in August 1782, and Bob resulted the third voted. Nevertheless he was designated by the Emperor Joseph II on 21 October 1783,^[3] probably because he was the only not-monk voted, and confirmed by Pope Pius VI on 15 December 1783. Accordingly he was consecrated bishop on 6 June 1784 by Grigore Maior^[4] and enthroned on 2 July 1784.

Bob was a firm supporter of the rights of the Romanian population under the Holy Roman Empire. He actually, along with the Orthodox bishop Gherasim Adamovici, signed and brought before the Imperial Court of Vienna on March 30, 1792 the Supplex Libellus Valachorum. This courageous act was anyway rejected.

Bob introduced an authoritarian model of leadership in his Church which led also to some clashes.^[2] He died on 2 October 1830.

He wrote a Dictionary of Romanian language published in Cluj (1822–1823), with about 11,000 Romanian words, which also gives the equivalent Latin and Hungarian. He promoted the printing of religious books, handbooks and theological books. He also supported the edition of the Bible in Romanian known as Bible of Blaj (translated by Samuil Micu and published in 1795), the second translation of the Holy Scriptures in Romanian.

Notes