Together with the opening of the Holy Trinity Monastery in 1754, led by hieromonk Grigore Marior, the Library of the Holy Trinity monastery functioned with didactic purposes. After 1791, the Diocese Seminar of Blaj reopened and, after 1854, it became archdiocesan. In 1932, the archdiocesan seminar became a theological academy and the library became a university library; it functioned until 1948, when it was shut down because of the dissolution of the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church by the communist regime.
Once the Greek-Catholic Institute was reopened in 1990, the library resumed its activity. Since 2001, it has been part of the Lucian Blaga Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca as one of its branches.
The library collections were compiled through the donations received from certain institutions and private individuals from across Romania and from abroad: The Greek-Catholic Major Archbishopric of Alba Iulia and Fagaras, the Greek-Catholic Theological Institute of Blaj, the Greek-Catholic Bishopric of Oradea, the Roman-Catholic Theological Institute of Iasi, charity institutions from Italy, France, Germany etc. Certain private individuals greatly contributed to the enrichment of the library collections, among whom we must mention: prof. Ovidiu Barlea, pr. Ştefan Medvesan, fam. prof. Tatu and many others. Since 2001, the collections were also expanded by the acquisitions made through the Lucian Blaga Central University Library of Cluj-Napoca.
The library also holds a heritage collection and a great role in its establishment was played by pr. Valer Olea.
The fields covered by the publications are as follows: theology, philosophy, history, Romanian language and literature, world literature, folklore.
The books are in Romanian, as well as in other international languages: French, Italian, German and English.
Collections:
- Books: 35.000 volumes
- Periodicals: 277 titles
The library collections are organized thus: a repository in which 12.000 volumes are preserved, volumes which are described in a bibliographic database that can be accessed by anyone interested; two reading rooms with free access to the shelves and a capacity of 60 seats.
The library’s own databases:
A certain number of publications can be found in a bibliographic database.
