Rudolf Bzensky

* Szakolca, 27 October 1651 – † Kolozsvár, 13 June 1715 / Jesuit monk, ; historian ; ; He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 15, spent his novitiate in Bohemia (Neuhaus, Prague). He studied philosophy at the University of Olomouc and theology in Prague. In 1679–1684 he was a priest at the Hradec Králové college, during which he applied several times to become an American missionary, but instead he accompanied the imperial troops to the Balkans twice (1685–1686, 1688–1689) as a camp chaplain and proselyte, and after the retreat he went to Transylvania. He served as a pastor first in Karánsebes (1693), then in Brassó between 1694 and 1701, and then in Schurz, Szakolca and Košice in Bohemia between 1702 and 1708. In 1708, at his own request, he was transferred back to Brassó, and from 1711 until his death he worked in Kolozsvár. He reported on his travels in letters, in which he provided many interesting ethnographic and local historical data. The sections on the Romanians, Armenians and Bulgarians in Transylvania are particularly interesting, as well as the description of the process of re-Catholicization – the latter of which he himself was an active participant. His writings have survived in a number of copies in church and secular collections, and were used as sources by numerous 18th-century historians. Two of his works on Transylvania have survived in manuscript: Dissertatio historica Dacia Mediterranea (1699), Epistola de missionibus in Transylvania (1711). ; ; His main works: ; De origine et progressu cultus et lacrymis prodigios Claudiopolitanae iconis B. V. Mariae, é. n.