Miron Cristea (20 July 1868, Topliţa - 6 March 1939, Cannes) was the first patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church and Prime Minister of Romania for about a year (11 February 1938-6 March 1939).
He studied at the Saxon Gymnasium of Bistriţa (1879-1883), at the Greek-Catholic Lyceum of Năsăud (1883-1887), at the Orthodox Seminary of Sibiu (1897-1890). Finally he studied Philosophy at the University of Budapest (1891-1895), where he became the Doctor title in 1895 whith a dissertation about Mihai Eminescu (in Hungarian). He was elected bishop of Caransebeş in 1910. After the end of World War I, he was part of the Romanian delegation that wanted the unification of Romania and Transylvania, afterwards, in 1919 he became a metropolitan of Wallachia and in 1925 after a Synod was held, he was named the patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Between 1926 and 1930 he was one of the regents of King Ferdinand I of Romania and after Carol II of Romania rose to the throne and government headed by Octavian Goga resigned, he became Prime Minister in 1938, in order to achieve political unity in an era when the Iron Guard's popularity was rising.