Transylvanian Hungarians received bad news: it became final that the Batthyáneum would not belong to the Catholics. The most valuable property and collection, which was reclaimed by the Transylvanian Hungarian churches, remains in Romanian state hands.
The Batthyáneum in Gyulafehérvár is the most valuable property and collection that the Hungarian churches in Transylvania reclaimed from the Romanian state. The library, which includes 65,000 volumes and 1,650 medieval manuscripts, preserves three quarters of the codices and ancient manuscripts found in Romania. One of the codices, the Codex Aureus from 810, was insured for $25 million when it was briefly shipped to Germany in 2002.
The just concluded litigation was initiated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese because the Romanian restitution committee rejected the return of the library in November 2015. The Supreme Court of Appeal rejected the claim of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Gyulafehérvár regarding the return of the Batthyáneum library.
We had to wait nearly three years for the final verdict, but the Gyulafehérvár Panel Court already swept the church's request off the table at the basic level.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Gyulafehérvár argued in its lawsuit that the return of the Batthyáneum is regulated by a law still in force. They also pointed out that in 1998, the Romanian government adopted an emergency government decree on the return of some properties of symbolic importance, which was enacted by the parliament in 2002. And this law expressly provides for the restitution of the Batthyáneum and other properties, but the institutions of the Romanian state have not implemented this since then , and this did not bother the court either.
Source: Foter.ro
