Among other cultural achievements, Veniamin Nistor, Episcope of Caransebeş, is well known for founding the prestigious theological magazine titled “ALTARUL BANATULUI” (The Altar of Banat), accompanied by the subtitle “magazine for soul building and theological science issued by the Eparchy of Caransebeş”. The magazine, in an exceptional graphic design for those hard times, was meant to be a publication printed six times per year, at the Diocesan Typography of Caransebeş, founded in 1885 by the Episcope Ioan Popasu. The magazine included several columns; some of the published materials were thorough theology studies, others were mere popularization. Most of the studies, articles, biographic medallions, comments, reviews and bibliographic notes were published by the professors of the Theological Academy of Caransebeş, others were published by clerics within the eparchial administrative staff, by Priests or by laic intellectuals from Banat.  The columns were structured as follows:  a “Forward” referring to current aspects of our Church’s life, followed by the most consistent column of “Studies and articles” including historic, biblical, patristic articles, articles in fields like systematic theology, dogmatic and fundamental theology, philosophy, moral, pastoral theology and Christian mission. The section “Current Issues” treated liturgical, paradigmatic and pastoral-missionary matters. Another column titled “Orthodox Attitudes” argued existing matters. The column “Comments” debated various aspects of the civil and religious society, moral and ethic issues. The column “Orthodox Portraits” included micro-monographs of great personalities of Romanian theology and culture.  The seventh section accommodated some “Moral Readings”, various moralistic translations. The entire column “Reviews and bibliographic notes” was dedicated to books in various fields, published during the 2^nd World War period and within the short while until the vestiture of the communist regime, signed with the initials of the editorial staff members. Most of these were books and studies written by prominent authors, well-known in various fields of activity; others were prayer books or theological publications. The last column was dedicated to “Notes”, printed by two columns, and listed “news” and information from various fields, also briefly describing church-related, political, social-economic and cultural events of the country. At the end, the theological Bibliography was listed alphabetically, namely o list of the publications in this field recommended by the editorial staff to their booklovers, for reading, meditation and comprehension.

Given the harsher conditions related to the atheist communist regime, it become increasingly difficult for the magazine to be printed, leading to its suppression in 1947. Further on, as of 1951, the magazine was allowed to start publishing again under a new title, namely “Mitropolia Banatului (the Metropolitan Church of Banat)”. In fact, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, during the meeting held in June 1950, decided, inter alia, to merge the official eparchial bulletins by Metropolitan Churches. Therefore, the “Archdiocesan Magazine”, the official gazette of the Archiepiscopate of Timisoara and Caransebeş, as well as the “Bulletin” of the Eparchy of Arad, ceased being published in 1951, and the official publication of the two Eparchies seemed to be, as of that year, the magazine “Mitropolia Banatului”. By merging the two eparchial publications, the priestship of the two Eparchies shall have the opportunity to follow the development of the church life throughout the entire area circumscribed to the Metropolitan Church.  Until around 1960, the politico-propagandistic articles were predominant; later on, such materials were avoided, so that the Occidentals would not fall under the impression that the Church liberties were one way or another restricted. In turn, the preferred topics were related to anchoring the Romanian Theology in social issues. On the contrary, starting with the eighth decade, there was an increased emphasis on the national topics, by the cerebration in the magazine’s pages of some events and personalities of mark of the Romanian history, a particular interest being also shown for the ecumenism themes, especially after the moment when the Romanian Orthodox Church was accepted to the World Council of Churches. Over time, the communist authorities imposed numerous restrictions related to the magazine’s publishing; in order to be published, each editions had to be sent to Bucharest, the Department of Cults, to receive the permission of being published, the so-called “Pass for press”. The copies sent back to editorial office had corrections and related “reworking” indications.

After the Revolution of December 1989 and re-gaining of the Romanian people’s rights, more specifically in January 1990, it has been decided to go back to the old name, the original name of the magazine, namely “ALTARUL BANATULUI”, adding the subtitle “The official magazine of the Archiepiscopate of Timisoara and Caransebeş and of the Episcopate of Arad”, it pages being dedicated to planting the ancestral belief into the souls of all believers, the authentic spirituality, and particularly dedicated to healing the wounds caused by scores and scores of years of atheist dictatorships, so very difficult undertaken by the Romanian people. Generally, the current content of the magazine is faithfully duplicating the content of the original magazine, including theme related to national and international church actuality. Together with the church reorganization within the Metropolitan Church of Banat, the magazine redefined its nomenclature, so that presently, the magazine “ALTARUL BANATULUI” is called the Magazine of the Archiepiscopate of Timisoara, the Archiepiscopate of Arad and the Episcopate of Caransebeş”.