Renewed museum of Bishop Márton reopens in central Romania

The museum of Áron Márton, the ethnic Hungarian bishop of Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár) from 1939 to 1980, was reopened in his native village Sandominic (Csíkszentdomokos), in central Romania’s Szeklerland region, on Saturday.

The museum has been extended with a section of Romanian secret service documents about the bishop as well as digital and mechanical interactive elements.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Árpád János Potápi, the state secretary for Hungarian communities abroad, noted that the communist power-holders had failed to break the bishop, who had repeatedly stood up for the oppressed.

Áron Márton (1896-1980) was a prominent representative of Hungarian public life in Transylvania.

In 1944, he condemned the planned deportation of Hungarian and Romanian Jews. For his activities during this period, he was awarded the title “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Yad Vashem institute in Jerusalem in 1999.

A committed advocate of religious freedom and human rights, Márton became an outspoken opponent of Romania’s dictatorial communist regime. He was arrested in 1949 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1951. Upon international pressure, he was ultimately released in 1955 but was not allowed to leave the bishopric building from 1956 to 1967.

Photo: www.facebook.com/PotápiÁrpádJános

Source: MTI