[8] According to data published in the 2016 Annuario Pontificio, the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church had 504,280 members, 8 bishops, 1,225 parishes, some 835 diocesan priests and 235 seminarians of its own rite at the end of 2012.

Following the Habsburg conquest of Transylvania in 1687, Metropolitan Atanasie Anghel entered into full communion with the See of Rome by the Act of Union of 1698, that was formalized by a synod of bishops on September 4, 1700.

[13] By entering into the Union, Atanasie and the other bishops, along with their respective dioceses, accepted the supreme authority of the Pope, while at the same time being granted the right to keep their own Greek Byzantine liturgical rite.

This event coincided with the arrival of the Jesuits in Transylvania (second time), who attempted to align this province more closely with Western Europe.

Moreover, many leading figures of the Romanian emancipation movement in Transylvania, such as Simion Bărnuțiu and Iuliu Maniu, began their careers as lay servants of the Greek-Catholic Church.

After assuming political power in 1948, the Communist regime, rooted in Marxist–Leninist atheism, deposed all 12 bishops of the Greek-Catholic Church on Stalin's orders.

On March 14, 1990, after the fall of the Communist regime, he was appointed Archbishop of Făgăraș and Alba Iulia, and was made a cardinal the following year.

Normative Act 9/31, passed on December 31, 1989, repealed Decree 358/1948 (that outlawed the Greek-Catholic Church) as repugnant and bringing grave prejudice upon the Romanian state.

Only after much struggle and considerable delays, some of the Church's properties, in particular the cathedrals of Cluj, Blaj, Lugoj, and Oradea, were restored to their rightful owner.

The Romanian Church United with Rome is still undergoing a process of recovery from the wounds inflicted by the Communist rulers and the forced merger.