History of Transylvania issue of international contention. This has abated (but not disappeared) since the Revolution of 1989 restored democracy in Romania. Transylvania retains a significant Hungarian-speaking minority, slightly less than half of which identify themselves as Székely. Ethnic Germans in Transylvania (known as Saxons) comprise about one percent of the population; however, Austrian and German influences remain in the architecture and urban landscape of much of Transylvania. The region's history may be traced through the religions of its inhabitants. Most Romanians in Transylvania belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church faith, but from the 18th to the 20th centuries the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church
Early German colonists in Transylvania devastated and remained depopulated after the Mongol invasion of 1241. During the following years he laid the foundations to "Villa Nympz" (Nimesch), a fortified peasant village in a side valley of the Great Kokel River near Medgyes.<ref> Despite of all future historical tribulations and misfortunes, Medardus and his descendants, later known as the Maiterth family, managed to cultivate the former wilderness and transform it into rich and fertile farmland (agriculture, viticulture, stockbreeding). Early German colonists in Transylvania Medardus de Nympz is the Latinized name of Medard zu Nimesch, an early medieval German colonist in Transylvania. Born around 1215 in the