Subiect: In the second half of the 19th century, the Romanians from Transylvania were "maintaining themselves" from all points of view- political, religious and economic - on the bottom level of the social hierarchy. Because there were no Romanian political institutions, the church offered the Romanians the only frame for a community life, and together with faith was, throughout the centuries, the most important means of preserving the language and ethnic individuality. The relationship church-nation is often underlined in the literature of that period. The church is seen as a support of the idea of nationality, the lay intellectuals placing it among the first and most important factors which can provide a normal life for the Romanians living in Transylvania. The same lay intellectuals are the ones who sustain the idea of a church in a leading position in an environment dominated by tendencies of secularization, modernization and democratization of the church life. 1849 meant the relinquishing at the church unification ideal and the restoration of a national metropolitan church, giving each of the two denominations autonomy through separate metropolitan churches. The recognition of the orthodox religion leveled the unified and those who weren't unified, but, at the same time, marked the most powerful tendency of proselytism among the Romanians living in Transylvania in the 19th century, the entire issue being even worse because of the Austrian absolutist govemment.
