Abstract: The article analyses the status of the priests, parishes, and churches in Mărginimea Sibiului in the second half of the nineteenth century. The data and information selected from the Archive of Săliște Archpriestship valorize the cultural, social, and economic dimensions of the inhabitants, most of them Orthodox. As sources, we have used various general annual reports of the archpriests, inventories of parishes and archpriestships, accounts of priests on the size and status of the parishes, bishop’s circular notes, protocols of the archpriestship synods, document summaries, and school statistics. The analysis confirms the existence of so-called dynasties of priests, church funds and school funds, women’s reunions, priest conferences and religious circles. The churches have been preserved in good status and they were provided with church-specific items and valuable assets, icons, cult books, and priest outfits.

Keywords: church, priest, archpriest, ecclesiastical architecture, Transylvania.

https://doi.org/10.24193/JCH.2020.2.3