Victor Mihaly de Apșa

Victor Mihaly de Apşa, commonly Victor Mihali, was an ethnic Romanian Austro-Hungarian bishop of the Greek-Catholic Church. Born to an old noble family in Ieud, Maramureș County, he attended a Piarist primary school in Sighetu Marmaţiei and high school in Oradea, Trnava and Košice. After graduating in 1857, he was sent to Rome by his father, encouraged by Bishop Ioan Alexi. He studied at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, obtaining a doctorate in theology in 1863 and being ordained priest later that year. He returned to Transylvania and in 1864 was first named dean of students and later professor of church history and canon law at the seminary in Gherla. After Gherla Bishop Ioan Vancea was elected Metropolitan of Făgăraş and Alba Iulia, he took Mihali with him to Blaj as his secretary. In 1869-1870, Mihali accompanied Vancea to the First Vatican Council.