TEOLOGIA 1 / 2021 TEO, ISSN 2247-4382 86 (1), pp. 73-86, 2021 The Political-Religious Mission of Papal Inquisitor John of Capistrano in Banat and Transylvania Florin DOBREI Florin DOBREI “Hilarion V. Felea” Faculty of Orthodox Theology, Arad, Romania E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract In the enthusiastic atmosphere of the initialling, at Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439), of the union between the Western and the Eastern Church, in Banat and in south- west Transylvania appeared the papal inquisitor John of Capistrano, emblematic personality of the Roman missionary in the middle of the XVth century. The purpose of his arrival was that of consolidating the union between the two Churches and through this, of strengthening the common anti-Ottoman front, in the eve of the great battle of Belgrade (1456), battle in which, as a matter of fact, he gave his life, together with his main collaborator, the Romanian voivode John Hunyadi. Keywords Papal inquisitor, John of Capistrano, John of Caffa, Iovanychik of “Nandor”, Transylvania, religious union. I. Historical-ecclesiastical preliminary After many unsuccessful previous attempts, the union between the Catholic and Orthodox Church was concluded at Ferrara and Florence, in the years 1438-1439. For the Byzantines, the initiators of this act, the STUDIES AND ARTICLES 73 TEOLOGIA Florin DOBREI 1 / 2021 document was, from a political point of view, of capital importance, given the fact that the Turks were “knocking” on the gates of Constantinople; for the Westerners, on the contrary, this moment was a good opportunity for accomplishing a union in the terms imposed by the papal Curia, that is of bringing back the Orthodox within the Catholic Church after fi ve centuries of alienation.