Andrei Şaguna

St. Andrei Șaguna
Metropolitan bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania
Born	20 January 1809 Miskolc, Hungary
Died	28 June 1873 Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt, Sibiu), Hungary
Venerated in	Romanian Orthodox Church
Canonized	2011-10-29, Sibiu by the Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church
Major shrine	Holy Trinity Cathedral, Sibiu
Feast	30 November (NS)
Patronage	Romania

Andrei Șaguna (20 January 1809, Miskolc, Hungary – 28 June 1873, Nagyszeben, Hungary) was a Metropolitan bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Transylvania, and one of the Romanian community political leaders in the Habsburg Monarchy, especially active during the 1848 Revolution. He was an honorary member of the Romanian Academy.

He was Aromanian in origin, his family having settled with Naum Șaguna (Andrei's father) in Hungary from Grabova, now Albania. With the guidance of local Jesuits, Șaguna's parents had opted to convert to Roman Catholicism, seeking to obtain a better status than the second-class one reserved for most Eastern Orthodox subjects of the Habsburgs. However, the Șagunas most likely continued to practice their original religion in secret - the future Metropolitan was probably never a practising Catholic.

After he rejoined the Eastern Church while living and studying in Pest, Andrei Șaguna became a monk and started his ecclesiastical career in the Banat region. As he was becoming a convinced nationalist, Șaguna refused to join the Serbian Orthodox Church hierarchy in Sremski Karlovci (at the time, the Serbian Church was the governing body of local Orthodox denominations). Instead, he left for Transylvania - where he was able to integrate within a Romanian-dominated clergy.

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