1The promotions to cardinalship of some bishops from the Austrian Empire – the Dual Monarchy after 1867 – were influenced by the developments affecting the State-Church relations and the rapports between religion and society in the nineteenth century1. At the level of the propaganda and the official image, at least, the Habsburgs continued to assert their role as a dynasty and as a Catholic state, as well as their desire to establish, from this perspective, closer relations with the papacy.

2In the Empire, like in the other countries with a Catholic hierarchy, the appointment of cardinals represented a complex, difficult issue, which often occurred at the junction between reasons of state, ecclesiastical strategies and diplomacy. The dignity of a cardinal was reached via two routes : either through the nomination of the (arch) bishops that the political power – the emperor-king and the government – envisaged for promotion and subjected to the pope’s attention ; or through the creation of cardinals at the pope’s express desire, without allowing the political factor to interfere in any way. For the first group of cardinals, whom the sources refer to as cardinals of « the Crown », the political dimension of their promotion was important in the sense that the upper echelons of political power recommended hierarchs that the Holy See generally looked favourably upon ; this did not mean, however, that political preferences were expressed in tune with the principle of the episcopate’s utmost obedience to the leading power structures (emperor/king, government).

3The State-Church relationship was fundamental for the career of a bishop, including at this point of advancement to cardinalship, given, among other things, the dual allegiance that circumscribed the activity of the episcopate. On the one hand, as hierarchs, bishops were held under the ordinary, immediate and « truly episcopal » jurisdiction of the pope (which was, in fact, exercised upon the entire Church), as stipulated by one of the resolutions of the First Vatican Council2. On the other hand, as shepherds of dioceses from the Empire, they had to take into account the state’s demands and its policies concerning the Church3. In the Habsburg Empire, the procedure for promotion to cardinalship was, after all, identical with the appointment of a bishop, in the sense that the emperor designated a member of the clergy to fill a vacant diocesan seat and the pope pronounced himself by granting him canonical investiture.

Between Vienna and Budapest : issues concerning the appointment of Cardinals in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy

4Interestingly, the nomination proposals for several new cardinals in the Austrian Empire highlight the main issues of the debate on the Church-State relations. The apostolic Nunciature in Vienna was, naturally, the channel of communication between Vienna and Rome, and the reports sent by the nuncio to the Holy See are now valuable sources for reconstituting the arguments underlying various appointment proposals for cardinalships, with the entire range of political-ecclesiastical issues that pertained to them.

5From the correspondence between the Viennese Foreign Ministry and the representative of the Dual Monarchy with the Pope, Count Paar, as well as from that exchanged between the Viennese Nunciature and the pope’s State Secretariat we may reconstruct, in general outlines, the procedure for the appointment of cardinals and its related political and ecclesiastical context. We have examined, in particular, the debate on this issue from the 1880s and 1890s, when the nomination proposals for some new cardinals in Austria-Hungary also included a Romanian Greek-Catholic bishop, Metropolitan Ioan Vancea4.

6At the beginning of the 1870s, there was no consistory and, therefore, no advancement to cardinalship in the Catholic Church. These were years of great difficulty for the pope and for the central administration of the Catholic Church, which was forced to recalibrate its activity after Rome’s occupation in September 1870 and the consequent loss of the last pope-king’s temporal sovereignty5. Only in 1873 (December 22) was the first consistory held, in which amongst the appointees were also two cardinals from Austria-Hungary, János Simor and Maximilian Joseph von Tarnóczy6. The question of appointing new cardinals was raised earlier in the pontifical circles ; thus, in July 1872 Palomba Caracciolo, Austria-Hungary’s chargé d’affaires to the Holy See, notified Vienna that the talks between the pope and Monsignor Marini had revolved around the « need to appoint new cardinals ». From a very early stage, in the context of these discussions, Vienna expressed its desire that it should have archbishops from Austria-Hungary elevated to cardinalship. Thus, for example, in his report of 10 August 1872, Palomba referred to a previous dispatch, which had raised the issue of advancing the Archbishop Primate of Hungary, János Simor, and the Archbishop of Salzburg to cardinalship. This correspondence reveals that the Holy See expressed reservations concerning new appointments to cardinalship because of the piatto cardinalizio, i.e. the costs they would entail. The reports Palomba sent to Vienna over the following months included various details of the discussions carried in the pontifical circles from Rome in connection with the possibility of appointing new cardinals. These debates, held in the proximity of the pope, attempted not only an assessment of possibilities and contingencies, but also tackled the issue of the appointment of new cardinals from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy ; this, for example, is what the report sent by Palomba to Vienna, on 5 November 1872, shows. In the correspondence of the Viennese envoy to the pope from the following year, Vienna’s desire to see the Archbishops of Esztergom and Salzburg appointed to cardinalship was reiterated ; these appointments would actually be made in the consistory of 22 December 1873. Finally, another interesting idea that recurred several times in the correspondence carried by the chargé d’affaires Palomba between 1873-1875 suggested that since the pope’s health was weak, the Sacred College had to be strengthened through new advancements to cardinalship : in the event that there should be a conclave determined by the pontiff’s demise, the basis necessary for electing his successor had to be ensured. The correspondence between Vienna and Rome on the topic continued into the following period, and Pope Pius IX would also make new appointments to cardinalship in 1875 and 18767.

7In 1877, the idea of appointing cardinals from the Catholic Churches across the Danubian Monarchy was consistently present in the debates of the political and religious circles from Vienna and Budapest and, equally, in the correspondence between the Viennese Nunciature and the pope’s State Secretariat. It was, in fact, an important year, in which the Sacred College gained 16 new cardinals appointed in three consistories, held on 12 March, 22 June and 28 September : amongst them were two prelates from Austria-Hungary, Johann Rudolf Kutschker, the Archbishop of Vienna, and Josip Mihalovič, the Archbishop of Zagreb. The requests voiced from Vienna, however, as well as from Budapest, were more ambitious, since their aim was to see more archbishops from the Dual Monarchy promoted by the pope8.

8A particularly interesting insight into the issue of promotions to cardinalship may be derived from the nuncio’s discussions with Count Julius Andrássy, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Dual Monarchy, from the Spring of 1877. Minister Andrássy informed the nuncio, in the meeting of 27 February 1877, that the emperor would propose, in the letter that he was preparing to send to the pope, the advancement to cardinalship of the Archbishops of Vienna and Kalocsa, as well as of a third archbishop, either that of Zagreb or that of Făgăraş9. Ludovico Jacobini’s letter to Giovanni Simeoni of February 27, following his telegram from the same day, was a very interesting document, comprising rather dense findings and commentaries on promotions to the dignity of a cardinal in Austria-Hungary. Count Andrássy started by telling Jacobini that several French and British cardinals were expected to be appointed at the next consistory, while the appointment of prelates from Austria-Hungary to this dignity was neglected by the Holy See. At that time, in Austria-Hungary there was an insufficient number of holders of the title of cardinal, only two, and this was contrary to the interests of the government, which desired that there should be a convenient number of purple bearers, in the common interest of both the Church and the State. In the past, the Danubian Monarchy used to have five cardinals, but for the moment, the emperor would request the appointment of three of its prelates and subjects, one for Transleithania, another for Hungary and the third for the kingdoms annexed to the crown of St. Stephen. The discussion reviewed the possibility of elevating the Romanian Greek-Catholic Archbishop Ioan Vancea to the rank of cardinal, something to which we shall return below. Referring to the Archbishop of Olmutz, Andrássy also high-lighted the fact that he did not benefit from the emperor’s approval. Instead, for Hungary, the person most appropriate for promotion to cardinalship was Haynald, the Archbishop of Kalocsa10, who, as the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister emphasised, had many qualities : he occupied a famous episcopal see ; his talent and his manners were appreciated by all his fellow bishops and countrymen ; his activity was vast and wide-ranging ; he supported educational and charitable establishments from his own financial sources ; he was called to exert an important influence in the kingdom of Hungary, which could only be to the advantage of religion and the Church11.

9Only two days before the consistory of 12 March 1877, in which Pius IX would appoint new cardinals, many of whom were Spaniards, but no one, at that moment, came from Austria-Hungary, the correspondence between the Nunciature and the State Secretariat in Rome recorded another discussion between the nuncio and Count Andrássy, in which the latter expressed his disappointment at the Holy See’s intention to exclude Haynald from the upcoming promotions to cardinalship ; that would happen two years later, through the decision of Leo XIII, as mentioned above. Jacobini gave an account meant to highlight the discretionary powers of the Holy See in relation to the preferences of a State, even Catholic ; he also said that he had finally made Minister Andrássy understand that the government could not and must not impose its viewpoint upon the pope concerning the usefulness and desirability of promoting certain persons to cardinalship, all the more so because, even if Haynald was to be excluded, Pius IX would appoint another one of those recommended by the government and would therefore have no grounds for complaint. Andrássy went on to say that under the circumstances, it was preferable to appoint the Archbishop of Agram (Zagreb), Josip Mihalovič, instead of the Archbishop of Făgăraş, Ioan Vancea, arguing in favour of this option of the Hungarian government, which seemed to have rallied the emperor’s support12.

10A special moment in the evolution of the discussions on promoting members of the Austro-Hungarian episcopate to cardinalship was the hearing Nuncio Jacobini had gained with Franz Joseph, on 20 March 1877. Though he admitted having belatedly asked the Holy See to create new cardinals from among the episcopate of the monarchy, the emperor referred to Haynald’s optimal qualities and exemplary ecclesiastical performance, whose exclusion from the promotions was bound to impress the Hungarian government negatively. The emperor mentioned, in passing, the Hungarian government’s option of seeing the Archbishop of Zagreb instead of the Archbishop of Făgăraş promoted as cardinal. A larger space in the discussion was devoted to the conduct of the Archbishop of Vienna, Kutschker, whose promotion was desired by the emperor, but frowned upon by the pope because of his lack of combative spirit for protecting the rights and interests of the Catholic Church in Austria against the government’s legislative policy ; of the recent government initiatives, those that were cited were the law concerning the parish communities and that referring to Church property13. Jacobini underlined an idea that he always resumed on other occasions as well, namely that the pope expected the bishops, especially those who shepherded older and more prestigious episcopal sees, to display such exemplary zeal and energy as to deserve the rank of cardinal. This observation very explicitly refers to the rapports between the Church and modernity, which had, in an ideological, cultural and political sense, become more shouting and more aggressive against the interests of the Church ; it was natural that the Roman pontiff should want, at that time, to give the cardinal’s beret as a supreme reward to bishops who had been able to successfully wage the anti-modernity « crusade » in their dioceses and countries. Finally, Jacobini’s letter summarised his discussion with Haynald, who came to the Nunciature to infirm the media rumours that the pope refused to make him a cardinal because he considered him to be his personal enemy14.

11The theme continued to worry the top political circles in Austria-Hungary also during the following months, as seen from Nuncio Jacobini’s reports. A second consistory took place in Rome on 22 June 1877, and then the pope conceded to the Viennese emperor and his two governments, appointing both the Archbishop of Vienna and the Archbishop of Zagreb as cardinals. The correspondence that we are considering here brings to the fore new arguments that have been advanced in the difficult dialogue on the topic of the appointment of cardinals from the Dual Monarchy, by the emperor and the governments subordinated to him on the one hand, and by the papacy on the other hand, whose will was expressed and represented in this context by Nuncio Jacobini. Thus, Jacobini’s report of 14 April 1877 recounted a new meeting with the Foreign Minister Andrássy, mentioning the imperial government’s desire that the pope should appoint Vinzenz Gasser, the Bishop of Brixen (Bressanone)15 as cardinal.

12This possibility was quickly abandoned, and Andrássy returned to the disappointment experienced by the Hungarian government concerning Haynald’s exclusion from promotion. Jacobini’s report contains valuable information about what dualism meant at the level of ecclesiastical policy – Hungary wanted, no more and no less, to acquire importance through its cardinals from the dioceses of Transleithania, who should be on a par numerically with those from Cisleithania. Thus, according to what Andrássy told Jacobini, the Hungarian government had said that the only cardinal from Hungary it wanted was Haynald, an attitude which the emperor dismissed as chauvinistic. As Rome refused to promote Haynald, the Hungarian Government assumed that the Pope did not wish to give Hungary a second cardinal ; this was a state of mind that Jacobini considered to be dangerous to the interests of Catholicism in Hungary, especially since, at that time, the government in Budapest was headed by a Protestant Prime Minister. Andrássy also said, however, that Hungary wanted Josip Mihalovič to be made cardinal under these circumstances16.

13The nuncio informed the Secretary of State Simeoni about some news on this matter in a further letter, dated 14 April 1877. At the beginning of his epistle, he returned to Gasser, the Bishop of Brixen, highlighting his successes in his fight against liberalism from his diocese in the Tyrol region. Jacobini insisted on letting Rome know a detail related to Emperor Francis Joseph’s state of mind in the context of his negotiations with the Holy See for the appointment of cardinals from the monarchy. The nuncio reported thus that the emperor had declared to a person, during a recent hearing, that the Holy Father did not wish to appoint cardinals for Austria, an idea that profoundly affected Francis Joseph. The letter then went on to emphasise how important it was for the Church to successfully wage its fight against liberalism in Austria-Hungary17.

14The debate staged in the political and diplomatic circles on the appointment of cardinals from amongst the episcopate in Austria-Hungary continued, as did the promotions ; during the pastorate of the next pope, Leo XIII, consistories were held almost every year18. We have presented the coordinates of this debate, selecting from the rather scanty archival documentation on this topic information concerning the negotiations between Vienna and Rome for the appointment of new cardinals from amongst the bishops of the Danubian Monarchy during the eighth decade of the nineteenth century ; this is not a period we have chosen at random, since in 1873 and 1877 the Romanian Greek-Catholic Bishop Ioan Vancea was also proposed for advancement to cardinalship. We have, therefore, considered it appropriate to present the general framework of the debate, with the interests and arguments that were upheld throughout its duration, in order to make more understandable the « files » for promotion to cardinalship, successful or not, from the Greek-Catholic Ukrainian and Romanian Churches in the second half of the nineteenth century. From the case studies evinced by the above-cited correspondence, a few general ideas may be extracted. Thus, the appointment of cardinals went through a difficult decision-making process in the political circles from Austria-Hungary, because both the most suitable candidates for advancement and the number of future cardinals were decided upon by three vectors of power : the governments in Vienna and Budapest together with the emperor. Both regions constituting the Dual Monarchy, Cisleithania and Transleithania, wanted to have an equal number of cardinals. Austria-Hungary was a truly multicultural state, which could often imperil the position of Catholicism, especially at the level of legislative policies. The emperor himself considered that the loyalty or obedience of the Catholic episcopate to his August person was important, but did not ascertain the candidates to the cardinal’s purple solely from this point of view, since he himself was the Catholic emperor of a state that still claimed this confession as the official component of its self-image ; consequently, Francis Joseph did not underestimate, in the appointment recommendations he submitted to the pope, elements such as the theological training, morality, and pastoral efficiency of the bishops envisaged for advancement.

15The Holy See also had its own reasons for accepting the recommendations for appointments to cardinalship that it received from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and from the other states. Granting its consent to the advancements that Vienna or Budapest desired meant that the Holy See could maintain good relations with Austria-Hungary, not to mention with Francis Joseph I, whose conduct as a good Catholic was highly commended by the pontifical diplomats. For the papacy, the promotion of bishops to this rank had to be simultaneously the highest distinction it granted the latter in recognition of their « antimodernist struggle », waged in the service of the Church, in their dioceses and states of origin. The dedication and tenacity with which a prelate defended the interests of the Church in political debates, the efficiency with which he managed to block legislative initiatives that broadened the state’s sphere of action, represented qualities that the pope appreciated highly ; together with professional training, and theological and pastoral qualifications, these qualities could bring about the papal confirmation of the proposal forwarded by the « Crown » and the advancement of these bishops to cardinalship. The appointment of an archbishop from amongst the cardinals was also evaluated for its consequences amongst the other members of the episcopate and, more generally, the faithful, and for the greater influence that the Church could gain19.

16The creation of new cardinals from amongst the Latin-Rite Catholic episcopate of Austria-Hungary was, so to speak, a well-established practice within the framework of the relations between Vienna and the Holy See. The novelty, in this respect, resided in the existence – during the second half of the nineteenth century – of various projects for appointments to cardinalship of Eastern-Rite Catholic bishops from the Habsburg/Austro-Hungarian Empire, some of these projects having been completed whilst others having remained in the stage of desiderata, given their blockage on the complicated decisional path that linked the two capitals of the Danubian monarchy with the Holy See. Such projects concerned bishops of the Ukrainian and Romanian Greek-Catholic Churches and resulted in the granting of cardinalships to the Ruthenian bishops Michael Lewicki in 1856 and Sylvester Sembratowicz in 1895, as well as in the attempt – resumed several times yet never materialised – of bestowing the cardinal’s purple to the Romanian Metropolitan Ioan Vancea.

17As a matter of fact, during the nineteenth century, the two Greek-Catholic Churches were the focus of major ecclesiastical projects, promoted both from within and by the Holy See. Both were envisaged for elevation to a canonical status of greater authority and prestige, for strengthening their missionary dimension and making it more efficient. Before the Romanian Church, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church was the object and target of such projects. The project for establishing a Patriarchate for the Ukrainians of Greek-Catholic confession in the Austrian Empire had been formulated ever since the first half of the nineteenth century20.

18The Romanian Greek-Catholic Church generated and, to some extent, also carried out large-scale projects in the second half of the nineteenth century. The establishment, in 1853, of its metropolitan province, which was independent of the Hungarian Roman-Catholic hierarchy and subordinated solely under the canonical aspect to the Holy See, as well of two new dioceses, at Gherla and Lugoj, re-launched Romanian Greek-Catholicism on both an ecclesiastical and a national level. There followed a period of organisation, which was essential for the development of this Church, with three provincial synods (in 1872, 1882 and 1900) and a series of diocesan and archdiocesan synods. The participation of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Episcopate in the works of the ecumenical First Vatican Council, between 1869-1870, also took on the form of a project important for the identity of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church, which brought its tradition and its specificity to the awareness of the Holy See and of the entire Catholic world, represented through the episcopate that attended the conciliar reunion in Rome. On this occasion, Metropolitan Vancea presented before the pope and other members of the Roman Curia, important aspects of the Romanian Greek-Catholic ecclesiastical project, including the elevation of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church to the rank of a patriarchate and the setting up, in Vidin, south of the river Danube, of a Romanian Greek-Catholic mission that would be coordinated from Blaj. These were unfinalised ideas and plans, which nonetheless showed that the Romanian Greek-Catholic elite of the time, together with representatives of the Holy See, had in mind the strengthening of this Church and the augmentation of its missionary and proselytical impact upon the Romanians21.

To be or not to be a Cardinal : the case of the Romanian Metropolitan Bishof Ioan Vancea (1869-1892)

19The project of appointing a Romanian hierarch to the dignity of cardinal in the second half of the nineteenth century represents an exceptional historical information that reveals another large-scale idea, similar to the gaining of the metropolitan status or to the idea of obtaining the rank of a patriarchate for the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church. A century ahead of the appointment of Iuliu Hossu to the rank of cardinalship by Pope Paul VI in 196922, the Vancea « case » was the first case ever of a Romanian bishop who was considered for receiving such a high dignity in the Catholic Church, the second in the hierarchical structure after the pope. The project itself was advanced from the Austro-Hungarian political circles to the Roman Curia on several occasions, in 1869, 1873, 1877, and the matter was also resumed, in principle, in 1884.

20The earliest information on this subject dates from 1869 and can be found in the memoirs of Victor Mihályi of Apşa, archbishop and metropolitan, Vancea’s successor to the metropolitan see of Blaj. The text of the memoir recounts the visit to Blaj, on July 28 1869, of a certain Alexie Zsákosi of Turda, a « provincial commissioner on retirement ». This character, who is not mentioned in other sources on the period, seems to have had, according to his own statements, various significant assignments and implications in the pre- and post-1848 history of Transylvania : he was appointed by Emperor Ferdinand I (1835-1848) as Provincial Commissioner for Transylvania. The conversation between this Alexie Zsákosi of Turda, Metropolitan Vancea and his secretary, Victor Mihályi, the author of the account, on July 28 1869, addressed, amongst others, the issue of raising Vancea to the dignity of cardinal following the initiative of the government in Budapest. Pursuing political purposes, the Hungarian government envisaged promoting two Greek-Catholic prelates from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to cardinalships : the Archbishop of Alba Iulia and the Archbishop of Lemberg. The government’s initiative does not seem to have met the approval of Rome, which, in Vancea’s opinion, was beneficial for his image amongst his countrymen, who considered him close to the line of Latin Catholicism, as the cited source also suggests23.

21Mihályi’s notes can be read in conjunction with another document, at least as interesting and enigmatic in its own way : a letter of 6 April 1877, whereby the prefect of the Propaganda Fide Congregation, Cardinal Alessandro Franchi started with Ludovico Jacobini, the Nuncio of Vienna, a secret investigation on the authenticity and rectitude of Ioan Vancea’s Catholic faith, with a view to promoting the latter to a higher ecclesiastical dignity, not mentioned expressis verbis in the document24.

22Asking the nuncio for information about Vancea, Cardinal Franchi sketched a portrait of the latter, highlighting certain aspects of his ecclesiastical conduct that had to be verified, such as his conception on the indissolubility of matrimony, his true attitude towards the ten conditions imposed by the electoral synod of 1868, the manner in which the metropolitan had made the decrees of the First Vatican Council public, his opinion on the papal primacy, the pope’s disciplinary power and its impact on the Oriental-Rite Catholic Churches, the content of the first provincial synod decrees that were then under review in Rome. At the end of this letter, Franchi summarised the purpose of the inquiry he had initiated, saying that the pope wanted to know for sure, under all aspects and especially from a doctrinal point of view, whether Vancea was truly worthy of the « eminent dignity with which he would be invested and the impression that such a promotion would make on the public ». The letter did not pinpoint the ecclesiastical dignity which Vancea was expected to be advanced to ; the 1877 correspondence between the Nunciature and Rome confirms, as we shall see, the aim and purpose of the investigation initiated by the prefect of the Propaganda. The considerations formulated by Franchi on the Romanian hierarch reveal the distance and the differences between the standard paradigm of Latin Catholicism and Ioan Vancea’s options of a theological and ecclesiastical disciplinary nature25.

23The correspondence between the Nunciature in Vienna and the pope’s State Secretariat provides details that are critical for outlining such a delicate ecclesiastical affair. During this year, 1877, the preparations for appointing the Romanian Greek-Catholic metropolitan to cardinalship were closer to realisation than on other previous attempts ; the archival documentation is therefore more varied on this issue. Thus, in the report sent to Rome on 27 February 1877, Nuncio Jacobini summed up a lengthy discussion he had had with the Foreign Minister of the Dual Monarchy, Count Julius Andrássy, on the promotions to cardinalship that the emperor and the governments of the Dual Monarchy desired. This document was one of the most substantial in all the correspondence we have studied, concerning the project for the promotion of the Romanian metropolitan to cardinalship. Andrássy said thus that the Dual Monarchy demanded that three cardinals should be appointed : the Archbishop of Vienna, the Archbishop of Kalocsa, and Croatian Archbishop of Zagreb or the Romanian Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Făgăraş. As regards the third of the potential beneficiaries of such preparatives, Minister Andrássy said that both archiepiscopal sees were important, the one of Zagreb for the Slavs in Croatia and that of Făgăraş for the Romanians in Transylvania ; this would give sufficient reasons for appointing one or the other to the rank of cardinal. The position of both archbishops, Andrássy continued, was not of negligible religious and political importance under those circumstances, especially in light of the developments that the Oriental Question might entail, in any case, it would be useful to appoint one or the other to cardinalship in order to give more weight to their influence and prestige and to strengthen the Catholic confession against the « schismatic » confession in the regions they shepherded. The nuncio’s report continued to cite Andrássy, offering very valuable information, such as the fact that the Romanian archbishop had been previously proposed for promotion to the Holy See in 1873, but that at that time the Holy See had chosen, from the list submitted by the Viennese emperor, the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Archbishop Primate of Hungary, which now made it all the more urgent that the Romanian hierarch should be advanced26.

24The idea that this time the pope should appoint the Archbishop of Zagreb or the one of Făgăraş and Alba Iulia as the third Austro-Hungarian cardinal was a constant request coming from the Dual Monarchy during the year 1877. These were the terms in which Andrássy raised the matter in his discussion with Jacobini at the Nunciature on 10 March 1877. What weighed more heavily was the promotion of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Zagreb, Mihalovič, whose position in the area would be strengthened in front of Strossmayer, a well-known Croatian nationalist, who was inconvenient for the government in Budapest and, seven years before, a great opponent of the majority theses at the works of the ecumenical First Vatican Council27.

25This possible appointment or advancement of either Mihalovič or Vancea was eventually sorted out in March 1877 : the government in Budapest insisted that the Archbishop of Zagreb, rather than the Romanian Greek-Catholic Archbishop of Blaj, should receive the cardinalship, as revealed by Jacobini’s report to Rome from 20 March 187728. With this, the diplomatic talks held at the Nunciature began to clarify the situation, in the sense that there was a single proposal for the third bearer of a cardinal’s beret – from amongst the bishops of Austria-Hungary – left for Rome : Mihalovič, the Archbishop of Zagreb. The idea consequently advanced a few steps, according to the procedure commonly used in such situations : Rome requested Cardinal János Simor, the Primate of Hungary, to provide a recommendation for the promotion of Mihalovič29, who was informed that the emperor and the pope had agreed to promote him to the dignity of cardinal30.

26After this point, there was a further attempt of resuming the proposal to promote Ioan Vancea to cardinalship, in 1884. The Viennese nuncio asked, in a report he submitted to Rome, whether it was appropriate to reconsider the 1877 proposal to appoint the Romanian Metropolitan, which had been left unfinished31. The idea reappeared under the circumstances in which, in principle, the Dual Empire wanted to see an archbishop of the Eastern Rite amongst its cardinals : this would eventually materialise through the appointment of the Ukrainian Sylvester Sembratowicz from Lemberg in 189532. Due to the lack of interest of the dual authorities, at that time, in a possible promotion of Vancea, the idea would eventually fall into disuse.

Final considerations

27In the period under examination here, the appointment of the cardinals in the Habsburg Empire, which, in 1867, became a dual monarchy, was also predominantly the expression of ecclesiastical policies and was consumed within the sphere of the rapports between the Church and the State and between the Empire and the papacy. The Austrian state wanted to see some of its Catholic bishops receive appointments as cardinals, in accordance with its self-image as an officially Catholic state, at a time when secularist policies and the general secularisation of values began to affect more and more clearly this part of Europe. After 1867, promotion to cardinalship became a distinct expression of the two parties into which the Habsburg Empire had divided, Cisleithania and Transleithania. For reasons of prevalently domestic policy, Vienna, seconded by Budapest, wanted the Holy See to periodically appoint cardinals from amongst the ranks of the Oriental-Rite Catholic episcopate within its frontiers. Although it did not exclude pragmatic reasons and political-diplomatic arrangements, the acceptance by the pope of the promotion proposals submitted by the emperor and the Austro-Hungarian governments was assumed by the Holy See in a different register, in the sense that the dignity of cardinal was granted to bishops with exemplary pastoral and ecclesiastical conduct, defenders of the religious values and interests of the Church before the secular policies of the state. The Holy See had its own reasons for appointing a Greek-Catholic bishop as cardinal : it did so on two occasions throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Strengthening the Greek-Catholic structures that were in the proximity of Orthodox population blocks and rendering their missionary character more efficient represented fundamental reasons for which the papacy periodically took into account the possibility of appointing cardinals from amongst the ranks of the Greek-Catholic episcopate of the Habsburg Empire.