Between Norm and Practice. The Reformation of the Local Clergy in the Uniate Diocese of Fagaras (Transylvania) in the 18th Century. A Case Study - the Clergy of Doboka County. I focused my analysis on a case study, the local clergy in County Dabaca, with a view to highlighting which were the reformist/non-reformist factors at the local, parish level. Like in other Catholic areas, the reformation of the local clergy focused on two aspects: the personal lives of the priests and their pastoral duties. The priests' remarriage (bigamy), co-habitation, drunkenness and neglect of the pastoral office were placed under scrutiny. In the Uniate Diocese of Fagaras, the reformation of the clergy had a defensive purpose, being meant to stave off the concerted attack by the Protestants and the Catholics, who joined forces in lampooning the deviations from the norm of the Uniate clergy. The purpose of the attack was to show that such clergy did not deserve to enjoy rights and privileges because they were not "truly united." Thus, an identity mark was established between the union and the reformed, disciplined clergy. As the local clergy faced pressures exerted both from above, by the secular power and the United ecclesiastical elite, and from below, by the believers, I have wondered to what extent these parish priests resisted, accommodated and accepted the reform measures. The pressure exerted by the Transylvanian Estates stimulated the Uniate bishops to aim at reshaping the lifestyle of the clergy by eliminating the excesses thereof. In the general synods of 1700 and 1725, fines were established for the priests who frequented the taverns and got drunk, and in 1767 Bishop Atanasie Rednic, who was undertaking a canonical visitation, ordered that the priests "shall behave soberly before all and set good examples to them. which is why no one shall find themselves in the taverns, as the holy canons prohibit this." Judicial investigations show, however, that various priests continued to socialize in the taverns or drink in their homes with other priests and villagers, for whom such behaviour was customary and pertained to hospitality practices. Another change that the Uniate episcopate imposed in the private lives of priests referred to bigamy; a relentless campaign in this regardwas launched in the years 1754-1755. The trend was decreasing, though, in the first half of the century. While in 1733 the number of bigamist Uniate priests in the county had reached the average in the diocese, 8.06%, in 1755 bigamist priests represented only 2.95%. Statistical information suggests that bigamist priests continued to be tolerated especially in the smaller parishes. The concern for the private lives of the priests, for moralizing their way of life belonged to a wider strategy deployed by the Uniate diocese, which also targeted the reformation of the believers' private lives through regulations on marriage and divorce. The priests were considered the key instrument of changing the parishioners' private lives. The prohibition of clandestine marriages, of those concluded without the consent of the spouses' parents, at night time, and the prohibition of divorce, in keeping with the Tridentine recommendations, depended on the willingness of the priests and archpriests to comply with the regulations and to resist the pressures exerted by parishioners, who were interested in their own welfare, in achieving comfort in their personal lives, and in maintaining their old habits. The inquiries regarding non-canonical marriages show the complicity between the priests and the parishioners in circumventing the rules of the church. This analysis reveals that besides the Uniate bishops, the agents of reforming the parish clergy also included the owners of the villages, who denounced the parish priests' deviations from the norm particularly when, for various, mostly economic, reasons, pertaining to the ecclesiastical land, they entered into conflict with the latter. On the other hand, the parishioners seem to have been more lenient towards the vices of the priests, and even managed to "mould" them after their own needs in matters concerning their private lives, marriages or divorces.
