Lucian Mureșan (born 23 May 1930) is a Romanian prelate of the Roman Greek Catholic Church who has been the first Major Archbishop of the Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia since 2005. He was archbishop there from 1993 to 2005 and bishop of Maramureș from 1990 to 1993. He has been a cardinal of the Catholic Church since 2012. As Major Archbishop of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia he is based in Blaj and is the head of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.
Biography
Early life
Lucian Mureșan was born on 23 May 1930 in the village of Firiza (now the Ferneziu district of Baia Mare), in the Kingdom of Romania. He was the tenth of Peter and Maria (Breban) Mureșan's twelve children. He attended primary school in Firiza from 1938 to 1944 and secondary school in Baia Mare at the Gheorghe Șincai High School from 1944 to 1948.
Education for the priesthood was prohibited when he came of age, as the Romanian Greek Catholic Church was completely suppressed by Romania's Communist government. Between 1948 and 1951, Mureșan attended school for woodworking, focusing on fine furniture in Baia Mare while continuing his academic studies part-time. From 1951 to 1954, he performed his mandatory military service first at the aviation school in Turnișor, Sibiu County and then at the jet aviation battalion in Craiova. In 1953, because of his connection with the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, he was transferred from the air force to work on the construction of Romania's first large hydroelectric plant at the Bicaz Dam.
After completing his military service in 1954, he worked in different places while studying for the priesthood, one of a handful of students at the Roman Catholic Theological Institute in Alba-Iulia under Bishop Márton Áron, who had been released from prison but remained under house arrest, but a government crackdown ended that in his fourth year of studies. Since his religious affiliation made him unemployable in mining and construction, he worked at the quarry near his home town for almost a decade and then for the Department of Roads and Bridges in Maramureș until he retired in June 1990. He had continued to study in secret with former theology professors and completed a licensing exam, so that he was prepared for ordination when the government released Romania's bishops from prison in 1964.
Priest
Mureșan was ordained a priest on 19 December 1964 by Ioan Dragomir, auxiliary bishop of Maramureș, in the basement of a building in Cluj. As instructed by Dragomir, he even kept his ordination secret from his parents. He exercised his pastoral ministry in hiding, mainly dedicated to young people and those who wanted to become priests, while continuing his secular employment. He later worked as a priest more openly in the diocese of Maramureș.
After Dragomir's death on 25 April 1985, he was provisional ordinary of the diocese of Maramureș until 9 August 1986 when, having been proposed by the diocesan chapter, he was installed in that office by Archbishop of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia Alexandru Todea.
Bishop
Following the Romanian Revolution of December 1989, the Romanian Catholic Church gained legal status and began to function publicly. On 14 March 1990, Mureșa was elected eparch of Maramureș of the Romanians. Pope John Paul gave his assent the next day. He received his episcopal consecration on 27 May on the terrace of the Romanian Soldier's Monument in Baia Mare, from Archbishop Todea, assisted by Ioan Ploscaru, Bishop of Lugoj, and Guido del Mestri, a veteran member of the diplomatic service of the Holy See who had been expelled from Romania in 1950, in the presence of 100 priests and more than 20,000 faithful. It was the first meeting of the entire Greek Catholic hierarchy at a large public event and included the presence of a papal representative. At the ceremony, the President of the Republic read the legal decree recognizing his title. Mureșan opened the new Baia Mare Theological Institute in the academic year 1990-1991. It included a 3-year program for training religion teachers.
He was named Metropolitan Archbishop of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia of the Romanians on 4 July 1993 and on 27 August he was installed in Blaj.
He convened and participated in the four sessions of the Fourth Provincial Council of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, held between 1995 and 1998.
He participated in 1995 in the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Romanian Catholic Mission in Paris, celebrating Mass in Romanian at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. In August 1997, through his efforts, the remains of Dom Inocențiu Micu-Klein were taken from Rome, where he died in exile, to the cathedral he founded in Blaj.