Hero cardinal who suffered Communist persecution dies at 94

Cardinal Lucian Mureșan, Major Archbishop of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, died on September 25, 2025, in Blaj, at the age of 94. The announcement was made on the official website of this Eastern Church, which is in communion with Rome.

Created a non-voting (over age 80) cardinal by Benedict XVI in 2012 , he was one of the last direct witnesses to the persecution suffered by his Church during the communist regime.

"I give thanks to God for the exemplary witness of this faithful son of the Church, who did not waver even in times of persecution," Pope Leo said in a telegram published on September 27 by the Vatican press office. "I remember with admiration the difficulties and humiliations he courageously endured during the years of trial, when he continued to serve Christ in pastoral ministry, even at the risk of his own freedom."

Born on May 23, 1931, into a large family in Ferneziu, Transylvania, Lucian Mureșan grew up in a context marked by World War II and then by the fall of King Michael I, who died in 2017, nearly 70 years after his abdication in 1947.

The communist regime that then came to power, led by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej until 1965, placed itself under the wing of the USSR and ushered in a period of religious persecution.

Following the Soviet model applied by Stalin in Ukraine, the communist regime banned and dissolved the Romanian Greek Catholic Church in 1948. The young Lucian Mureșan was then forced to interrupt his studies and take on various manual jobs on construction sites, while secretly continuing his training.

In 1955, as the Latin Catholic Church continued to enjoy a certain institutional existence despite very limited freedoms, he entered the Latin seminary in Alba Iulia. However, he was expelled four years later by the authorities and placed under surveillance. For 10 years, he worked as a laborer in a stone quarry, while secretly continuing his theological studies.

Mureșan received priestly ordination in secret in 1964 from Bishop Ioan Dragomir during a ceremony held in the basement of a building. He then exercised his ministry clandestinely for more than 25 years.

He devoted himself to the education of young people and the survival of the faith in the Eparchy of Maramureș, of which he became the clandestine leader in 1986.

Anxious to gain some support in the West, Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime, in power from 1965 to 1989, conceded some rights to the Latin Catholic Church, but remained repressive towards Greek Catholics.

After the fall of communism, the Greek Catholic Church was reestablished. Bishop Lucian Mureșan was appointed bishop of Maramureș in 1990, then became metropolitan archbishop of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia in 1994. In 2005, Benedict XVI elevated this see to a major archbishopric, and Bishop Mureșan thus became the first major archbishop of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.

As Primate of the Romanian Church, he also presided over the Romanian Episcopal Conference three times, from 1998 to 2001, from 2004 to 2007, and from 2010 to 2012. He played a central role in the reconstruction of ecclesial structures, the restitution of confiscated property, and pastoral reorganization.

Created cardinal in 2012 by Benedict XVI, he became a member of the dicastery for the Oriental Churches. In this role, he represented his country within the universal Church, notably at the Synod on the Family in 2014. However, having already passed the age of 80 when he was created a cardinal, he did not participate in the 2013 conclave that led to the election of Pope Francis, nor in the 2025 conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV.

Nevertheless, as the age limit of 75 does not apply to bishops of the Eastern Churches, he remained in office until the end of his life, assuming the role of a witness to the faith lived in persecution. Since the episcopal office is assumed in a spirit of “spiritual fatherhood” and not necessarily of practical governance, at 94 years of age, he was the oldest cardinal still officially in charge of a diocese.

On June 2, 2019, Cardinal Mureșa welcomed Pope Francis to Romania in Blaj for the beatification of seven bishops martyred under communism. Among them was Cardinal Iuliu Hossu (1885-1970), who six years later would be the subject of a tribute ceremony presided over by Leo XIV at the Vatican on June 2, 2025.

“I can affirm that Iuliu Hossu was above all a man of God, who left us a legacy of his uninterrupted struggle for Truth and Justice,” Cardinal Mureșan explains in a message sent on this occasion. As a young priest, he explains, he was able to visit him in his house arrest.

The cardinal concluded by quoting the last words of the blessed martyr before he died: “My struggle is over! Yours continues! Carry it through to the end!”

Cardinal Hossu's last words are therefore also, through this message, among Cardinal Mureșan's last public words.

His death brings the total number of cardinals to 247, including 128 electors in the event of a conclave — 8 more than the threshold of 120 — and 119 non-electors.