The Liberty Field

The Liberty Field went down in history in 1848, when it hosted two national
meetings of the Romanians from Transylvania, in May and in September. The most
important was held on May 3 rd /15th (depending on the calendar) 1848, when 40,000
Romanians coming from all over Transylvania, approved the Proclamation from Blaj,
in which it was requested to King Ferdinand I of Austria, the independence of the
Romanian nation, the church autonomy, the serfdom abolishment, the freedom of
trade and the freedom of media, as well as the independence of Justice and the
establishment of a National Guard.
At that time, the Liberty Field was only a field outside the village and it was
chosen by the organizers of the assembly after the places originally proposed, the
"Holy Trinity" Cathedral and the square outside the Greek Catholic Cathedral were
not spacious enough for the number of the Romanians entering Blaj. The city was
chosen as the host of the meeting because it was the most important Romanian
cultural center at that time and the population was, in an overwhelming number,
mostly Romanian.
Being considered the symbol of the national unity, the Field of Liberty from
Blaj was the host of other important events for the history of Romania, including: The
event from 3/15 May 1868, in which 60,000 Romanians marked the anniversary of
20 years from the Assembly in 1848 and in which the Blaj Pronunciamento was
approved, another event was the flight of Aurel Vlaicu in 1911, one of the Romanian
aviation pioneers, as well as the famous United Flight, on November 23 rd 1918,
which brought in Blaj the documents of the Romanian Government for the Great
Assembly in Alba Iulia, from December 1 st 1918, during which the union of
Transylvania with Romania was decided.
The Liberty Field was the place where it basically started the persecution of the
Romanian Church United to Rome.
On May 15th 1948, the communist authorities, via some Orthodox hierarchs, asked
the Greek Catholic believers to leave the Church of Rome, and return to the
Orthodox Church. The Martyr Bishop Ioan Suciu, who was present at the event but
who was not allowed to speak, uttered the famous words: "For our Church the time
of the Good Friday (The Greatest Suffarance) has arrived."
The historical importance of the Liberty Field was exploited by the nationalist-
communist regime of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who in 1973, inaugurated a
memorial assembly made up of the monument Gloria and the statues of the
revolutionaries from 1848, without, however, mentioning the role of the Romanian
churches in the events of the 19th century. Only after the year 2000, the whole
assembly was completed with the busts of the two religious leaders, who led the
Great Assembly from 1848.
On the Liberty Field, in a symbolic manner, on October 7 th 1990, the Greek Catholic
Mitropoly from Blaj restarted its activity when, in the presence of the believers who
came from all over the country, the Hierarchical Liturgy was celebrated for the setting
up of Cardinal Alexandru Todea as a Mythropolit.
During the period 2016-2018, the Liberty Field entered a vast process of restoration
and modernization, which highlighted its historical value, and thus it has become one
of the most visited sites of Blaj.