in the 16th C, Transylvania became a semi-independent region where Austrian and Turkish influences vied for supremacy . It was beyond the reach of Catholic religious authority, Protestant preaching such as Lutheranism and Calvinism were able to flourish. In 1568 the Edict of Turda proclaimed four religious expressions -Catholic, Lutheranism, Calvinism and Unitarianism - as "accepted" (receptae), while Orthodoxy, which was the confession of the Romanian population, was proclaimed as "tolerated" (tolerata). The Edict of Turda is considered by mostly Hungarian historians as the first legal guarantee of religious freedom in Christian Europe.
All this happened long after Vlad the Impaler (15th C) so I imagine that the negative effects of the crucifix on their ancestors was long forgotten