The following is an open letter sent to the Lepanto Institute by Fr. Attila Bazsó-Dombi, a Hungarian Greek Catholic priest who was present on April 14 in Oradea at the eviction enforcement against Abbot Anzelm Fejes of the Norbertine Abbey of Oradea, also known as the Premonstratensian Provostry of Váradhegyfok. Fr. Attila prevented the gendarmes and police from attempting to take Abbot Anzelm from the altar during the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
READ: Romanian Gendarmes Seize Norbertine Abbey During Mass
OPEN LETTER
ON THE INCREASING PRESSURE OF THE ATTEMPTED USURPATION OF VÁRADHEGYFOK PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER’S PROPERTIES
I, undersigned, Attila Bazsó-Dombi, priest serving in the Hungarian Greek Catholic voluntary mission in Transylvania, make this Declaration at the prompting of my own conscience, whose motive requires no explanation. What would more require explanation is rather indifference and silence: How does God regard the one who doesn’t stand beside the afflicted, unjustly attacked, persecuted, tormented fellow human being, fellow believer, brother priest?
In this tragic matter, I must first of all warn those involved in any way on the levels of Catholic moral theology, ecclesiastical and secular legal practice, as well as ecclesiastical and secular politics; all Hungarian and Romanian Catholic bishops and priests; all Hungarian Catholics and of other denominations; all Christians; all supporters and all opponents; all people of goodwill; all indifferent observers; finally, but not least, domestic and international public opinion.
INTRODUCTION
The developments surrounding the properties of the Premonstratensian Provostry of Váradhegyfok seriously endangers legal certainty and ecclesiastical law, placing so [much] pressure on Provost-Prelate Rudolf Anzelm Fejes O.Praem., that disregards monastic autonomy and the prescriptions of canon law.
No “compromise” may be directed toward squandering ecclesiastical assets or accepting legal coercion! It is unworthy that while the Premonstratensian Provostry of Váradhegyfok struggles for legal continuity, it does not receive support precisely from those ecclesiastical and secular actors whose task is to defend Hungarian Catholic heritage against secularization.
CANONICAL AND MORAL JUSTIFICATION
Every administrator of ecclesiastical property has the duty to preserve assets diligently; unlawful relinquishment raises the issue of breach of trust. The current Code of Canon Law (CIC, canon 1254 §1) states: “The Catholic Church has innate right, independent of any civil power, to acquire, retain, administer, and alienate temporal goods in pursuit of its proper ends.”
The Premonstratensian Order is a religious order of pontifical right (exempt), its members owe respect to the local bishop, in the same time its internal affairs and property management fall under the direct protection of the Holy See, which must also be respected by local bishops (CIC canon 586). Any alienation or change in status of high-value properties requires the permission of the Holy See in all cases (CIC canon 1292 §2). No superior (whether provost or bishop) may unilaterally renounce real assets belonging to an ecclesiastical juridical person (namely, the Premonstratensian Order).
“Usurpation” falls under the sin prohibited by the Seventh Commandment (“You shall not steal!”; Catechism of the Catholic Church 2401). According to the Church’s social teaching, the state may not arbitrarily appropriate Church property. Pressure by state or political actors to acquire ecclesiastical assets violates the natural moral order of property rights and the Seventh Commandment. If an ecclesiastical leader, under political pressure, encourages another superior to relinquish Church property, raises moral issues of inducing sin (cooperation in another’s sin), breach of trust, and scandal (scandalum; CCC 2284–2287).
This is unfortunately not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a broader process in Transylvania and Partium in which ecclesiastical educational buildings (e.g., in Kolozsvár/Cluj/Clausenburg and Marosvásárhely/Târgu Mureș/Neumarkt) have been placed into uncertain legal status along political interests, scandalizing and confusing the community of the faithful.
According to the gravity of the real situation, there should be presented a multitude of diversified details and multilayered connexions, but this is only possible in a separate compilation. The present Declaration can only offer a glimpse of these framed in the Appendix below.
22nd of April, 2026
Attila Bazsó-Dombi
APPENDIX
The attempt to usurp the Premonstratensian properties of Váradhegyfok constitutes a series of assaults gravely violating ecclesiastical and civil law, as well as humanity itself, carried out under legal disguise and directed against Provost-Prelate Rudolf Anzelm Fejes O.Praem.
Unfortunately, this is not unique within a series of similar cases, nor merely another disgraceful story of the Romanian political mafia seeking high-value Hungarian Church properties. Nor is this even the first case involving Hungarian Catholic or other Hungarian denominational properties housing state schools.
Regarding Catholic school buildings used by state schools, without claiming completeness:
- In Kolozsvár (Cluj/Clausenburg) in 2008, following RMDSZ (Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania) instructions and initiated by high-ranking clergy, the secularization of the Hungarian Catholic school was carried out through rapid bureaucratic maneuvers, without consulting the affected parents and teachers, despite their protests, scandalizing the entire Hungarian – especially historical church – public opinion and discrediting themselves.
- In Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș/Neumarkt), the Hungarian Catholic school reestablished in 2014 was later dissolved through state intervention, while during the years-long multi-act drama, the “defense of the school” significantly boosted the expected electoral results of the RMDSZ, which had previously squandered its moral capital through political pacts.
Put plainly: The RMDSZ and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia, both actively defending the Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș/Neumarkt) Hungarian Catholic school, are not others who in 2008 on the initiative of that same Archdiocese merged in Kolozsvár (Cluj/Clausenburg) the Hungarian Catholic school into the state school operating in the same Church building, through the same RMDSZ deputy mayor and deputy school inspector!
In Oradea, the RMDSZ for years has been pressuring Archabbot Rudolf Anzelm Fejes to renounce the properties of the Premonstratensian Order through an agreement that would qualify as a high-value breach of trust, although any change in the status of these properties may only be authorized by the Holy See, and not incidentally are also strictly protected under Romanian state law!
And if this were not enough, hold on: While secular political powers are severely tormenting Archabbot Rudolf Anzelm Fejes for the assets of the Premonstratensian Order, at the same time he is reproached for rejecting “compromise” by the bishop residing in the extremely valuable episcopal palace, regained from the Romanian State by the blessed memory Bishop József Tempfli after decades of hard struggle?!
In this case invoking peace is false irenism (placability at any cost), because “irenism (from the Greek eiréné, ‘peace’) is always some vice (servile fear, desire for material gain, pursuit of favor, flattery, etc.): one or both parties depart from the path of truth for the sake of peace and agree on a false, supposedly shared opinion. In practice, irenism does not bring a real solution, it only temporarily deflects the problem that must be faced, and most often leads to greater conflicts.
Peace is a great, but not the greatest value: truth sets man free (cf. John 8:32). Peace is great, but not the supreme value: without inner freedom, it can never be realized. Irenism is always based on some disordered dependence or bondage. It is also a temptation in ecumenism and must be avoided under all circumstances if we wish to advance toward true unity.
Those “gentlemen” tormenting Archabbot Rudolf Anzelm Fejes know well that in the Romanian state, and likewise among its population, heavily conflict-laden historical legacies converge: in the Romanian Orthodox-majority regions outside the Carpathians the Phanariot rule of the Ottoman Porte ingrained characteristic corrupt reflexes; instead of the centuries-long internal peace of the Catholic Regnum Marianum, the divide-and-rule interests of the Habsburg dynasty in Transylvania fueled conflicts among nations and denominations; decades of communist rule combined all this through a peculiar Marxist dialectic.
Today, political opportunists serving the interests of perverse global powers deliberately exploit, for their own individual gain, the hopes for prosperity and peace of a population burdened by this troubled historical legacy.
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