Augustin Pacha

Augustin Pacha was a Romanian cleric, the first bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Timișoara. Born into a Banat Swabian family in Măureni (Moritzfeld), Caraş-Severin County, he was the twelfth of thirteen children and his father was a shoemaker. Following theological studies at the diocesan seminary in Timișoara, he was ordained a priest in 1893 in the city's Roman Catholic cathedral. In 1927 he was consecrated bishop at the Timișoara cathedral, becoming titular bishop of Lebedus. Three years later, he became the first Bishop of Timișoara, a diocese succeeding the former one at Cenad, the last bishop having departed Romania in 1923, leaving Pacha as Apostolic Administrator. In February 1934, alarmed by rising Nazi sentiment among the Swabians of his diocese, he visited Adolf Hitler, receiving a polite reply to his complaints but no concrete action.