Pál Bornemissza was the

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

bishop of Transylvania The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Alba Iulia (); ) is a Latin Church archdiocese in Transylvania, Romania. History It was established as a bishopric, the diocese of Transylvania also called Erdély (in Hungarian), or Karlsburg alias Siebenbür ...

in the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

from 1553 and 1556. King Ferdinand I appointed him to the

episcopal see An episcopal see is the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Phrases concerning actions occurring within or outside an episcopal see are indicative of the geographical significance of the term, making it synonymous with ''diocese'' ...

after years of vacancy, although the Transylvanian nobles had proposed an other candidate, Márton Kecseti. Bornemissza could not stop the spread of

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

in his

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

and he left Transylvania in 1554. Two years later, he abdicated the bishopric. After his abdication, the Transylvanian bishopric was left vacant for more than 100 years.

References

Sources

* * * 16th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Hungary Bishops of Transylvania {{Hungary-RC-bishop-stub