Reformation in the Kingdom of Hungary
The
Background
Reformation in Europe
An elaborate church organization secured the unity of Western Christianity.
From the early 15th century,
Luther's theology did not satisfy all reformers' expectations. He never abandoned his
A French Protestant refugee who settled in
The Reformation movement exerted influence on religious life and theology throughout Europe, but it thrived particularly in regions under a weak central authority.
Early Modern Hungary
The
According to modern historians' estimations, the kingdom was home to 3–4 million people in the late 1490s. About 3,2–4,2% of the population were nobles.[35] About 90,000 burghers lived in the royal free boroughs; these were fortified towns and cities with extensive autonomy.[36] Conservative jurists argued that everybody else (those who were neither nobles nor burghers) were to be regarded serfs, but their approach ignored reality.[37] Townspeople in the market towns—unfortified settlements with the right to hold weekly markets—had a higher level of personal freedom than villagers.[38] Rural communities were also divided. Artisans were rewarded with tax-exemption, but most peasants paid seignorial taxes to their lords.[39]
The
The Hungarian kings had extensive authority over church affairs. Papal decrees did not come into force without their assent and they controlled appointments to
King Matthias Corvinus (r. 1458–1490) made his court a center of Humanism.[43] A member of the Florentine Platonic Academy, Francesco Bandini, was the King's close advisor and Bandini's friend, Marsilio Ficino, dedicated his treatise on salvation to Corvinus.[48] Humanistic ideas influenced a narrow circle of intellectuals.[49] Most Hungarians preferred the traditional forms of spirituality and the personal piety of the Devotio Moderna was alien to them.[39] Historian László Kontler describes the 16th century as "a particularly exciting period in the history of the Hungarian culture".[50] An educated nun, Lea Ráskay, wrote a collection of the lives of saints for nunneries in the 1510s and 1520s. Wealthy individuals and guilds granted large sums to finance the erection of splendid triptych altarpieces in several churches.[note 3][51]
After the expansion of the Ottoman Empire reached Hungary's southern frontier in the late 1380s, Hungary resisted Ottoman attacks for more than a century. In 1513, Pope Leo X declared a crusade against the Ottomans. About 40,000 Hungarian peasants took the cross, although the landowners tried to prevent their serfs from joining the campaign. Inflamed by radical Franciscan friars, the crusaders accused their lords of obstructing the holy war and rose up in an open rebellion under the command of György Dózsa. Their demands included the unification of the Hungarian bishoprics into one diocese and the redistribution of church property. After the Transylvanian voivode, or royal governor, John Zápolya, inflicted a crushing defeat on Dózsa's army on 15 July 1514, the peasant revolt was crushed and the Diet limited the peasants' right to free movement.[52][53] As the Hungarian kings could no more defend Croatia against Ottoman raids effectively, the Croatian aristocrats approached the neighboring Habsburg rulers for support.[54]
The
As the Ottomans could never conquer the entire kingdom, its territory was divided into three parts.
Martinuzzi enabled Ferdinand's mercenaries to take control of the eastern Hungarian kingdom in June 1551, forcing Queen Isabella and her son into exile. Martinuzzi was murdered on 16 December 1551 by Ferdinand's henchmen, but the unpaid mercenaries could not prevent Ottoman attacks. In 1556, the Diet recalled John Sigismund and his mother from their exile. She ruled the country on her son's behalf until her death in 1559.[64][65] John Sigismund was the Sultan's loyal vassal and participated in several Ottoman military campaigns against Royal Hungary. During his reign, most Székelys were deprived of important elements of Székely liberties (such as tax exemption) which caused discontent in Székely Land.[66] Ferdinand's successor, Maximilian (r. 1564–1576), and Suleiman's son, Selim II (r. 1566–1574), restored peace in the Treaty of Adrianople in 1568. John Sigismund abandoned the title of king in his treaty with Maximilian in 1570, but continued to rule his realm using the title of Prince of Transylvania.[60] John Sigismund acknowledged the Habsburg kings' suzerainty[67] and their right to reunite Transylvania with Royal Hungary after his childless death.[68]
John Sigismund died in early 1571. The Three Nations' delegates ignored Maximilian's claim to Transylvania and elected a wealthy aristocrat
Beginnings
News of Luther's activity reached Hungary shortly after he published his Ninety-five Theses.[73] Merchants from Hermannstadt likely learnt of Luther's ideas at the Leipzig Trade Fair in 1519.[74] One Thomas Preisner gave the first documented public reading of Luther's theses in Leibitz (Ľubica, Slovakia) in 1521. In a year, the German townspeople were enthusiastically discussing Luther's views in the Upper Hungarian mining towns. King Louis's guardian, George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, entered into correspondence with Luther. Most German courtiers of Louis's wife, Mary of Habsburg, symphathized with the reformist ideas, but she did not abandon her Catholic faith. Her chaplain, Konrad Cordatus, made no secret of his adherence to Lutheran theology and she dismissed him after the Pope excommunicated Luther.[75] The Königsrichter, Markus Pemfflinger, supported the spread of Lutheran ideas in Hermannstadt where songs mocking the "Papists", or Catholics, gained popularity.[76]
Papist sect, you wretched people!
Look into yourselves and cast off your sins!
The fields are now green, the flowers are blooming,
And words full of meaning pour into the world.— Excerpt from a popular anti-Catholic Saxon song (c. 1524)[77]
The country's Hungarian- or Slavic-speaking population had no direct access to reformist literature for years.[59] Most nobles were hostile towards Protestant ideas, because they were convinced Hungary could resist Ottoman invasions only with the Pope's support. István Werbőczy who represented Hungary at the Imperial Diet of Worms in 1521 entered into a public argument with Luther. Luther stated that the Hungarians should fight against their own sins rather than against the Ottomans whom he regarded as "God's scourge". The Hungarian noblemen took his words as an insult, denying their self-declared mission of serving at the bulwark of Christianity.[78] The first anti-Lutheran edict was promulgated in Hungary on 24 April 1523; it ordered the persecution and execution of all Lutherans and the confiscation of their property. Ladislaus Szalkai, Archbishop of Esztergom, appointed commissioners to detect and destroy Evangelical literature, but the local magistrates obstructed them.[79][80] In Sopron, a royal commission experienced that townspeople regularly gathered in taverns to discuss Luther's views and to criticize the Pope.[81]
Anti-Lutheran legislation could not be enforced during the civil war that followed the Battle of Mohács.[80] Six of the twelve Hungarian bishops perished at the battlefield. King Ferdinand appointed bishops to the vacant sees, but the Pope did not confirm them. Church property was unprotected; church buildings and monasteries were regularly sacked or expropriated.[82] Neither king wanted to antagonize Protestant town leaders and aristocrats.[83] Protestant itinerant preachers freely crossed the frontiers between Hungary and King Ferdinand's other realms.[80] Some of them called themselves Neo-Utraquists to take advantage of the legal status of Utraquism in Bohemia.[6] King John's most prominent supporters, mainly nationalist aristocrats, looked on Luther as a German innovator and remained unsympathetic towards him. John was a devout Catholic, but he was unwilling to persecute "heretics" after the Pope excommunicated him for his alliance with the Ottomans in 1529.[84] Fear of social unrest hindered the spread of Protestant ideas, but no peasant movements followed the 1514 peasant war, because the serfs easily extracted exemptions from their lords in the wake of the Ottoman expansion.[85]
Laymen played a preeminent role in the dissemination and reception of reformist ideas.[85] Both Luther's denial of priestly privileges and Zwingli's picture of the reform movement as a force transforming church and society alike endorsed lay participation.[86] The first Protestant evangelists were "lay people of both sexes" who preached outside church buildings—in private homes or in public places.[85] Most leaders of the towns with significant German population were receptive to anti-Catholic preaching.[59] Pemfflinger expelled the Catholic parish priest and the Dominican friars from Hermannstadt around 1530. The wealthy mining town, Neusohl (Banská Bystrica, Slovakia), employed Evangelical town pastors from 1530. Some senior magistrates tried to impede the Reformation, but they could rarely find Catholic priests to fill the vacant parishes. Town councils granted scholarships to young people for studies at Wittenberg and other academic centers of the Reformation, but professional Evangelical preachers were still rare. In the 1540s, a Croatian graduate from Wittenberg, Michael Radašin, was a most popular pastor in the mining towns. Some town councils were reluctant to pay a regular remuneration to the local clergy. The Neusohl town pastor, Martin Hanko, had to dedicate much time to the management of his pastorate's properties to support himself before the town agreed to exchange them for a fix salary. Some preachers' radicalism outraged the moderate townspeople. Wolfgang Schustel, had to leave Bartfeld (Bardejov, Slovakia) for his strict views of public piety in 1531; his successor, Esaias Lang, was expelled for his Anabaptist sympathies.[87] A moderate magistrate, Johannes Honter, prevented the town pastor from abolishing the rules of fasting in Kronstadt in 1539.[88]
Individuals who did not speak German became receptive to Protestant ideas in the 1530s.[89] Protestant preachers compared the Hungarians, suffering from Ottoman invasions, with the Jews in the Egyptian and Babilonian captivities, describing the Hungarians as a new chosen people, able to regain God's favor through demonstrating their faith.[note 4] In contrast to this attractive explanation, Catholic clerics emphasized that the Ottoman plight had been brought to the Hungarian people as a punishment for their sins. Protestant men of letters actively participated in international scholarly networks. Many of them studied at German and Swiss universities or had direct contact to the most influential Protestant theologians.[91]
Reformist aristocrats gave shelter to Protestant preachers in both kings' realms.
Most ethnic Hungarian pastors were born in market towns and this background facilitated them to address the villagers' everyday concerns.[91] Ethnic Hungarians were exposed to reformist ideas in a period of intensive debates among concurring Protestant ideologies.[59] Two former Franciscan friars, Mátyás Dévai Bíró and Mihály Sztárai, and Sztárai's younger co-worker, István Szegedi Kiss, represented the "theological eclecticism" of their age. Dévai Bíró came under the influence of Luther and Melanchthon around 1530, but his deep loathing of the Mass made him an ardent opponent of the doctrine of transubstantiation, for which conservative Protestants regarded him as a "Sacramentarian". He was a popular pastor, serving in aristocratic courts and market towns in both kings' realms. Sztárai moved to Ottoman Hungary and established Protestant congregations in more than 120 settlements. Radical reformers attacked him for his conservative views on liturgy, but his unclear teaching on the Eucharist astonished Evangelical theologians.[96][91] Szegedi Kiss was influenced by Bullinger's Eucharistic theology.[98] His theological treaties were taught in Western European Protestant universities.[99]
Legalization
Evangelical Church
The Catholic
Evangelical
Experiencing the government's unwillingness to take anti-Protestant measures, the Saxon leaders concluded that religious issues could be treated as each nation's internal affairs. In April 1544, religious issues were re-considered at the Diet at Torda (Turda, Romania) and the co-existence of the Catholic and Evangelical denominations was tacitly recognised: a decree warned travellers to respect the devotional customs of the town or village where they were staying. The Three Nations' representatives wanted to consolidate religious status quo and the Diet prohibited further religious innovations.[107] In November, the Saxon nation's general assembly ordered that all Saxon towns introduce Evangelical liturgy; next year, the villages were to follow suit.[108][109] Evangelical Reformation spread from Kronstadt to the nearby Székely seats, primarily through the mediation of the town's Székely guards and two suburbs' Hungarian citizens. A Székely aristocrat, Pál Daczó, was the Evangelical pastors' most influential protector in Székely Land. Some Székely nobles remained devout Catholic, like the Apor family, securing the survival of Catholic enclaves.[109][110] The Saxon magistrates supported the publication of Evangelical catechisms in Romanian. They proposed liturgical changes, but most Romanian Orthodox priests rejected them.[111] Gáspár Drágffy's widow, Anna Báthory, convened northern Partium's Hungarian pastors to a synod in Erdőd (Ardud, Romania). They adopted twelve articles based on the Augsburg Confession in September 1545.[112][113]
The spread of Calvinist theology and radical ideas disturbed both the Catholic and Evangelical aristocrats and magistrates.[114] In 1548, the eastern Hungarian Diet repeated the ban on religious innovations,[115] while the Diet of Royal Hungary outlawed the "Sacramentarians" and Anabaptists.[114] At the latter Diet, the royal free boroughs were blamed for lenience with radical preachers.[116] The Catholic bishops set up commissions to expel all Protestants from Royal Hungary, but the royal free boroughs' immunities prevented the commissioners from launching investigations within their walls. Knowing that King Ferdinand had practically legalized the Augsburg Confession at the 1530 Imperial Diet, the Evangelical communities compiled confessions of faith to demonstrate their congregations' full compliance with it.[114] A schoolmaster from Bartfeld, Leonard Stöckel, completed the first such document in September 1549. His Confessio Pentapolitana sharply criticized "sacramentarian" and radical theologies. It was adopted by five Upper Hungarian royal free boroughs.[116]
The Ottomans were indifferent to Christian theological debates
The eastern Hungarian Diet enacted the Saxon interpretation and declared religious issues as part of each nation's internal affairs in 1550. The principle was not questioned after Queen Isabella and her son were exiled to Poland in 1551. The Diet regularly urged both Catholics and Evangelicals to receive each other "with deference and friendliness". In 1551, Kolozsvár (
Reformed Church
The aristocrats' willingness to expand their privileges and Ottoman expansion created favorable circumstances for the reception of Calvinist theology. Nobles started to regard the right to choose between concurring Christian denominations as an important element of their liberties.[124] Bullinger addressed his Brevis et pia institutio to the Hungarians, praising them for their struggle against the Ottomans. His work gained popularity, facilitating the spread of his theological views.[125] Tensions between concurring Protestant ideologies intensified and public theological debates were regularly held. That a congregation dismissed a pastor who had lost a debate was not uncommon, while a charismatic pastor could convince his flock to adhere to a new theology.[91]
An experienced debater, Márton Kálmáncsehi, was installed as the town pastor of Partium's wealthy market town, Debrecen, in 1551. He had already been famed for his passionate sermons that outraged moderate Protestants. Rumour had it that he had baptized children with water from a trough for swine to illustrate what Christian freedom meant. As town pastor, he replaced the altar with a simple wooden table in the church and wore everyday clothing during worship service. In line with Bullinger's views, he regarded the sacramental bread and wine as pure signs and symbols, for which the town council accused him of heresy and the Evangelical pastors' regional synod excommunicated him in Körösladány. A wealthy Protestant aristocrat, Péter Petrovics, stood by Kálmáncsehi and supported him to preach his views in his domains in the Partium. In 1552, Kálmáncsehi held two synods for the pastors of the region at Beregszász (Berehove, Ukraine) and they adopted decrees reflecting Calvinist influence. The spread of Calvinist ideology could cause heated debates: a Catholic citizen murdered a Reformed pastor in Várad in May 1553.[112][126] Petrovics's Italian physician Francesco Stancaro had been expelled from Prussia for his teaching on Christology.[127] According to mainstream theology, Christ united a divine and a human nature in his person. Stancaro did not reject this approach, but taught that Christ mediated between God and humankind only in his humanity.[128] His unorthodox interpretation brought him into frequent conflicts with the Evangelical clergy.[129]
For the Transylvanian Saxons were King Ferdinand's faithful supporters, his officials did not intervene when the Saxon pastors elected their first
Political scene was changing quickly. When Ferdinand withdrew his mercenaries from Transylvania, Bornemissza left his diocese and the Transylvanian bishopric was left vacant.[130] In 1556, the Diet elected Petrovics vice-regent to govern the country until the return of Queen Isabella and John Sigismund. During the interregnum, Petrovics initiated a religious debate between Evangelical and Reformed preachers in Kolozsvár.[131] The Three Nations' delegates celebrated the Queen's and her son's return with much pomp in October 1556.[132] The Diet secularized all properties of the bishoprics of Transylvania and Várad.[100] The Queen strove for religious peace and the Diet decreed that "everyone might hold the faith of his choice, together with the new rites or the older ones, without offence to any". The wording is misleading: the decree did not enact religious tolerance, but promoted the peaceful co-habitation of Catholics and Evangelicals.[127] In practice, the Catholic priests' free movement was limited to Catholic aristocrats' domains.[133] In 1557, the Evangelical pastors held a synod and divided the Transylvanian church district along ethnic lines. Ferenc Dávid, Kolozsvár's popular town pastor, was elected the Hungarian district's first superintendent.[134] Dávid, as historian Gábor Barta emphasizes, had a "sceptical mind" that "drove him from one crisis of faith to another".[135] Around 1557, his studies of Zwinglian theology weakened his Lutheran conviction,[136] but he eagerly defended traditional Christology against Stancaro.[129] Although Stancaro had to leave Hungary, his Christology deeply influenced his pupil, Tamás Arany.[137]
Religious discussions continued. In June 1557, the two Transylvanian church districts' joint synod completed a common confessional document, the Kolozsvár Consensus. It mirrored Luther's views on Eucharist, but in September the Protestant pastors of Partium adopted a Calvinist formula. The Saxon priests sent a copy of the Kolozsvár Consensus for a review to Melanchthon. The next Diet incorporated Melanchthon's assessment in a decree and outlawed Sacramentarians, but the ban could not stop the development of Reformed theology. Szegedi's student, Péter Melius Juhász completed the first Eucharistic creed in Hungarian.[138] He defined the Eucharist as a symbolic commemoration of Christ's death in line with Reformed theology.[139] He convinced Dávid to attend the synod of the Reformed clerics of Partium in Várad in August 1559. As the synod adopted the Reformed creed with Dávid's consent, Dávid's rupture with the Evangelical Church was inevitable and he abdicated the superintendency.[136] In November, Hungarian pastors from Upper Hungary, Partium and Transylvania assembled at a joint synod in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș, Romania) and adopted Melius's creed.[139] The German townspeople remained hostile towards Calvinism and seven Upper Hungarian mining towns adopted a common Lutheran confession of faith, the Confessio Heptapolitana.[116] Sometimes the local lords' patronage right was inadequate to stop the spread of Reformed ideas. The local congregation convinced Sárospatak's Evangelical lord, Gábor Perényi, to acknowledge its right to freely choose between Evangelical and Reformed Eucharistic liturgy.[140]
Archbishop Nicolaus Olahus founded a seminary for the education of the Catholic clergy in Nagyszombat in 1560. Next year, he established a Jesuit convent which developed into the Counter-Reformation's principal center in Royal Hungary.[141] Olahus tried to implement a ban against priests who had not received the holy orders from a Catholic bishop, but they were numerous and their congregations was unwilling to dismiss them. His action raised the Protestants' animus towards Catholic church authorities.[117]
King Ferdinand supported Catholic renewal, but John Sigismund adopted an open-minded approach in religious issues.[50][142] Historian Mihály Balázs proposes that John Sigismund wanted to identify his realm as "a haven for reform in sharp distinction from his Catholic Habsburg rivals".[143] After a series of debates between the Saxon Evangelical and the predominantly Hungarian Reformed pastors, he persuaded both parties to summarize their views in two separate documents and sent both summaries to German Protestant theologians for a review in 1562. The same year, he converted from Catholicism to Evangelism, but did not forbade further religious debates. A decisive debate was held at Nagyenyed (Aiud, Romania) in April 1564. John Sigismund's antitrinitarian physician Giorgio Biandrata who represented him at the meeting advanced the election of two separate superintendents before the discussions started, making the separation of the Evangelical and Reformed churches practically inevitable. The Reformed priests chose Dávid. On 4 June 1564, the Diet of Torda sanctioned the existence of the Reformed Church as the third religio recepta, or legally acknowledged denomination, in eastern Hungary. The same year, John Sigismund converted to Calvinism.[144]
Although two Calvinist leaders, Dávid and Heltai, were of Saxon origin, primarily ethnic Hungarians (including the majority of the Székelys)[145] chose to adhere to the Reformed Church.[146] The two Protestant denominations initially had no separate church organizations. The predominantly Reformed religio Colosvariensis ("Church of Kolozsvár") held jurisdiction over the counties, including the local Evangelical congregations, while the primarily Evangelical religio Cibiniensis ("Church of Hermannstadt") also included Reformed congregations in the Saxon seats.[147] To promote the Romanians' conversion to Calvinism, John Sigismund appointed a Protestant Romanian priest, Gheorghe of Sîngeorgiu, as their sole religious leader in 1566. The Diet ordered the expulsion of all Orthodox priests who refused to convert to Calvinism, but the decree was never implemented.[148]
Unitarian Church
Religious innovations continued in eastern Hungary and the most radical preachers started to openly reject the dogma of Trinity early in the 1560s.[149] One of them, Tamás Arany was banned from Debrecen by Péter Melius.[137] Giorgio Biandrata stated that all discussions about Christ's nature are unbiblical because God did not want to reveal all theological secrets to humankind.[150] He recognized that the Reformed congregations' autonomy facilitated the spread of radical views and convinced Ferenc Dávid to abandon trinitarian theology.[137][151] Dávid endorsed a radical theology, but he did not embrace most radical reformers' political activism.[152] In his publication of texts from Servetus's works, Dávid emphasized Christ's poverty, but also stated that Christ's example should be followed "to the extent that it was possible to do so".[153] The Kolozsvár magistrates appreciated Dávid's social conservativism and ordered the local pastors to comply with Dávid's teaching. Between 1566 and 1570, Kolozsvár became predominantly antitrinitarian, with repressed Reformed and Catholic minority communities.[135][149]
For Melius harshly criticized Dávid, King John Sigismund ordered them to discuss their views in public at Gyulafehérvár in April 1566. After the debate, John Sigismund praised Melius, and the Transylvanian clergy reassured their adherence to the dogma of Trinity. Dávid ignored their decision and refused to abandon antitrinitarianism. In February 1567, Melius held a synod in Debrecen, condemning Dávid and Dávid's followers for heresy.[154] The synod adopted a strictly Reformed confession of faith, known as Debrecen Confession, and ordered the removal of altars, organs and artefacts from the churches. The assembled pastors attacked the Papacy, associating it with the Antichrist, and blamed the "Papists" for replacing pure Christianity with their superstitions and doubtful traditions.[155] Biandrata as court physician, and Dávid as court preacher exercised significant influence on John Sigismund.[154] Antitrinitarianism well suited to his realm's international position: the adoption of an antitrinitarian theology expressed a distance from mainstream Christianity, without severing all links to it.[156] In February 1567, Dávid summoned the Transylvanian Reformed clerics to a synod at Torda. As the most devout Calvinist pastors absented themselves, the synod adopted a new creed, representing an interim position between trinitarian and antitrinitarian theologies. The creed acknowledged Christ as God's only son, described the Holy Spirit as a part of both God and Christ, but denied the Holy Spirit's independent personality. In the following months, Dávid summarized his theological views and critical comments on the Debrecen Confession in three Latin and two Hungarian treatises.[157]
John Sigismund convoked the Three Nations' delegates to a Diet in Torda in January 1568 to reconsider religious issues. The Diet passed an edict that expanded the limits of religious freedom in eastern Hungary.[158] The Edict of Torda authorized all pastors to freely preach their understanding of the Bible[159] and the local communities to freely determine their religious views.[152] In each parish, the majority confessional group could take possession of the local church building, but the displaced minority group was entitled to a compensation. Although landowners were forbidden to instal a priest in the churches under their patronage without the local community's consent, but the Hungarian, Saxon and Székely leaders strongly influenced the serfs' religious life in the lands under their rule.[160] In practice, the Edict of Torda granted the status of religio recepta to the antitrinitarian Transylvanian Unitarian Church.[50] The simple and attractive antitrinitarian slogan—"There is but one God"—facilitated mass conversions.[161] John Sigismund's Székely guards spread the new faith in Székely Land and prominent Székely aristocratic families converted to Unitarianism.[note 6][163] Some Székely communities' staunch Catholicism may have demonstrated their opposition to the King's attempts to limit their liberties. Hungarian noble families also chose Unitrianism, but most noblemen insisted on their Reformed, Evangelical or Catholic faith.[note 7][165] Unitarian church organization developed through the acquisition of Catholic church buildings together with the right to collect the tithes.[166]
A series of religious disputes between the three Protestant denominations' representatives followed the Diet. A Jesuit friar, János Leleszi, was allowed to attend the meetings as an observer. Secular leaders frequented the disputes and the theological arguments were presented in Hungarian for the first time in October 1569 in Várad. As John Sigismund did not hide his bias against trinitarian theology, his presence made the Reformed preachers uncomfortable. One of them, Péter Károlyi, made a complaint. In response, John Sigismund assured the Reformed pastors that he would never persecute them for their religious views, but he emphatically underlined that he would never allow Melius to expel antitrinitarian preachers from the Partium.[167]
Neither from us nor from our followers have you ever had to suffer injury. And that Péter Melius has been informed by our proclamation that he should not play the pope in our realm, persecuting clergy because of the true religion, nor burn books, nor force his belief on anyone, than it is for the following reason: We wish that in our country—and so it says in decree of the Diet—freedom shall reign. We know furthermore that faith is a gift from God and that conscience cannot be constrained. And if he does not abide by this, he may go to the other side of the Tisza.
— King John Sigismund's response to Péter Károlyi at the Várad debate (22 August 1568)[167]
John Sigismund's religious policy was unique in contemporaneous Europe. By the end of his reign, four legally acknowledged religions co-existed in his realm: Catholic communities survived primarily in Székely Land and Partium; the Saxons remained staunch supporters of their Evangelical Church; most Hungarians and Székelys adhered to Calvinism or Unitarianism.[168] The Edict of Torda, as historian Graeme Murdoch, concludes was "the product of the relative weakness of central political authority ... and intended to balance the interests the three nations represented in the diet."[159] Each acknowledged religion was supported by privileged groups—the leaders of the Hungarian, Saxon or Székely nations or the magistrates of the wealthy Kolozsvár.[168] Religious tolerance diminished the risk of confessional conflicts that could have been fatal to John Sigismund's nascent state.[159] Social radicalism was not tolerated. When a Polish pastor Elias Gczmidele proposed the establishment of a communitarian, egalitarian and pacifist congregation at Kolozsvár, Dávid achieved his dismissal.[153] The peasantry of the Partium was influenced by radical Anabaptist ideas. A charismatic Romanian serf, Gheorghe Crăciun, gathered a peasant army to establish the Kingdom of God in Earth in 1570. He led the armed peasantry against Debrecen, but Melius repelled the attack.[135][169]
The Habsburg kings of Royal Hungary did not tolerate Calvinist and antitrinitarian ideas. They regularly issued edicts against Sacramentarians in the 1560s and 1570s. The royal free boroughs and the nobility of the western counties remained staunch supporters of Lutheran theology. In contrast, aristocrats whose domains were located in the eastern counties employed Reformed priests and promoted the conversion of the local peasantry to Calvinism.
Consolidation
John Sigismund's successor, Stephen Báthory, was a Catholic, but anti-Habsburg aristocrat. A Catholic aristocrat's election indicates that the predominantly Protestant Three Nations regarded their denominations' position secure.
King Rudolph who succeeded his father in Royal Hungary abandoned Maximilian's tolerant policy and did not hide his favoritism towards Catholics.[171] Stephen Báthory persuaded the Diet to allow the Jesuits to settle in Transylvania in 1579. Two years later, he established a university for them in Kolozsvár. The first Jesuits came from Italy and Poland.[179] Although the Diet prohibited them to pursue missionary work,[133] they started recruiting among young Hungarian noblemen.[179]
The radicalism of some antitrinitarian intellectuals worried Stephen Báthory and he achieved a ban on further religious innovations at the Diet in May 1572.[171][180] The Diet authorized him to start investigations against suspected innovators together with a superintendent before the competent church authority. Without a superintendent's cooperation, state authorities were helpless against religious radicals. When three young antitrinitarian students challenged the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, Ferenc Dávid refused to initiate an investigation against them. Dávid remained open towards radical ideologies and the Diet restricted the antitrinitarian preachers' right to hold synods to Kolozsvár and Torda.[179][181] In the 1570s, most leading figures of radical antitrinitarianism visited Transylvania. The former Dominican Jacob Palaeologus who rejected the doctrine of original sin and opposed the adoration of Christ stayed in Transylvania from 1573 to 1575. The German Matthias Vehe came in 1578. He emphasized that the faithful should live in accordance with the Law of Moses as set in the Old Testament. Dávid did not strove for the adoption of Jewish rituals, but he condemned the invocation of Christ, associating it with polytheism.[182] Discussions about religious issues were popular and a Reformed priest noted that the peasants often approached him with "questions about where the Trinity might be in the Bible".[183]
Dávid's rejection of the adoration of Christ outraged moderate antitrinitarians. Giorgio Biandrata invited the prominent antitrinitarian theologian
In 1588, the Transylvanian Diet persuaded the young Sigismund Báthory to expulse the Jesuits from Transylvania in return for declaring him to be of age.[190] Báthory's favoritism towards Catholics was obvious and ambitious young Protestant aristocrats converted to Catholicism during his reign.[note 8] Pope Sixtus V appointed the Jesuit Alfonso Carillo to represent him in the Transylvanian court and Carillo became one of Báthory's most trusted advisors. Báthori purged the aristocrats who opposed his anti-Ottoman policy. Many of the executed noblemen were Unitarian and their relatives were often required to convert to Catholicism to receive a pardon.[note 9] The Jesuits could return to Transylvania and the Prince allowed the Catholic bishop of Transylvania, Demeter Naprágyi, to move to the old episcopal palace in Gyulafehérvár.[193]
In April 1595, the Diet did not only repeat the ban on religious innovations, but also ordered the heads of the counties and seats to persecute those who did not adhere to one of the four "received" denominations. The decree was directed against the Sabbatarians. The royal judge of Udvarhely Seat, Farkas Kornis, was known as radical Protestants' protector, but the seat's captain, Benedek Mindszenti, expelled many Sabbatarians from the seat. A Sabbatarian song would remember him as the "accursed captain". A Sabbatarian community wanted to approach the beylerbey of Buda offering to submit themselves to the Sultan in case of an Ottoman invasion, but their letter was intercepted. The Sabbatarians' persecution terminated when Mindszenti departed for a campaign against the Ottomans in September 1595.[194]
Uprising and peace
In 1603, King Rudolph announced that he was determined to exterminate the "godless heresy". Claiming the right of patronage over churches in royal free boroughs, he forced the predominantly Lutheran townspeople of Kassa (Košice, Slovakia) to cede their main church to the Catholics. The Protestant delegates protested against this action at the Diet, but the King arbitrarily supplemented the laws passed at the Diet with a clause ordering the persecution of heretics.[45] A decree prohibited the discussion of religious issues at the Diet in 1604.[195]
During the negotiations between Bocskai and the royal court, the Catholic clerics strove for the enactment of the inviolability of the Catholic Church's privileges in return for acknowledging the legal status of the Evangelical and Reformed Churches. Instead, the Diet passed laws confirming the nobles' right to religious freedom and extending it to the free royal boroughs, to the market towns in the royal demesne and to soldiery of the border fortresses. The Diet established the jurisdiction of county courts to make judgement in disputes over tithes, authorized the Evangelical and Reformed senior clergy to pursue parish visitations and the titular bishops lost their seats in the Upper House.[196]
Impacts
Triumph of Protestantism
About 5,000 parishes existed in tripartite Hungary around 1600. Protestants dominated more than 3,700 parishes, implying that more than 75% of the population adhered to a Protestant denomination. The Reformed Church held about 1,150 churches in Transylvania proper and the Partium, 650 churches in Royal Hungary and 250 in Ottoman Hungary.[197] The Catholic Church had lost around 90% of its adherents.[198]
Vernacular culture
The Reformation laid the foundation of the use of native languages in scholarly debates[99] and brought about the first golden age of vernacular culture for the kingdom's most ethnic groups.[199] Dévai Bíró completed the first study of the Hungarian language in 1538.[99] Sylvester's translation of the New Testament was the first Hungarian book printed in Hungary.[200] An Evangelical catechism was published in Slovakian in Bartfeld in 1581.[201] Evangelical Slovakian pastors adopted a version of the Czech language for liturgical use, especially because many of them regarded the Czech Hussites as their forefathers.[202]
Protestants and Catholics alike attributed particular importance to education. The town council gained control of the parish schools in the Protestant towns. They established school authorities to oversee teaching programmes and relationship between teachers, schoolchildren and parents and appointed the town pastor to head it. Although individual teaching programmes and school regulations were compiled, they all followed patterns adopted from educational centers of Protestant Europe. The earliest school regulation was compiled by Stöckel at Bartfeld in 1540.[203] Basic education included the study of catechism. The town's school offered the opportunity to learn to read, write and count. Humanities were taught at high schools, or gymnasia and only those who wanted to study at universities were required to learn theology. Protestant aristocrats established schools on their domains. In response, a Catholic synod ordered the establishment of elementary schools in each rural parish in 1560.[201]
Interreligious relations
Honter' successor as town pastor in Kronstadt, Valentin Wagner, published a catechism in Greek, in preparation to an intensive dialogue with the Orthodox Church. He made references to
Witch-hunting
Laws ordered the persecution of sorcery since the establishment of the Christian monarchy around 1000. Scattered documentary evidence shows that people were occasionally brought before courts for witchcraft, and some of them were burnt at the stake.[205] Scholastical demonology spread mainly in territories with a significant German population. The law book of Buda was the first legal document that associated sorcery with heresy in 1415.[206] Regular persecution of witches started in the 16th century, but it peaked only in the first quarter of the 18th century. Between 1520 and 1610, more than 55 witch-trials were held, and one in two resulted in the execution of the accused. Witch-hunting was especially intense during a short interwar period in the 1580s.[207] The condemnation of witchcraft was mainly a marginal element of Protestant preaching in Hungary, although Protestant pastors mentioned witches in their anti-Catholic polemical works.[208]
Notes
- ^ In the early 1430s, Nicholas of Cusa demonstrated that the Donation of Constantine, a crucial document of papal authority, could not be written in the 4th century, as it had been claimed traditionally. Juan Luis Vives described the Golden Legend—a popular collection of saints' life—as a text "written by men with mouths of iron and hearts of lead".[7]
- ^ For instance, the magistrates of the market town of Körmend persuaded their lord to replace the Augustinian friars with Franciscans in the local monastery.[45]
- ^ Master Paul completed Europe's largest carved triptych in the main church in Leutschau (Levoča, Slovakia) between 1508 and 1518.[50]
- ^ For instance, the Wittenberg graduate, András Farkas, comparised the Hungarians and the Jews in a song that gained popularity in the 1530s.[90]
- ^ For instance, Ferenc Révay sought Luther's opinion on the Eucharist.[93]
- ^ For instance, the Kornis, Petki, Dániel and Geréb families converted to Antitrinitarianism.[162]
- ^ For instance, most Kendis adhered to antitrinitarian theology, but Sándor Kendi remained Lutheran.[164]
- ^ Two young Unitarian nobles, Miklós Bogáthy and Ferenc Wass, who had studied at the Protestant Heidelberg University, continued their studies in Rome from 1592.[191]
- ^ The executed Sándor Kendi's son, István, converted to Catholicism. Farkas Kovacsóczy's two sons studied at the Jesuits' school after their father was executed.[192]
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Further reading
- Daniel, David P. (1998). "Calvinism in Hungary: the theological and ecclesiastical transition to the Reformed faith". In Pettegree, Andrew; Duke, Alastair; Lewis, Gillian (eds.). Calvinism in Europe, 1540-1620. Cambridge University Press. pp. 205–230. ISBN 0-521-57452-8.
- Evans, R. J. W. (1985). "Calvinism in East Central Europe: Hungary and Her Neighbours". In Prestwich, Menna (ed.). International Calvinism, 1541-1715. Clarendon Press. pp. 167–196. ISBN 9780198228745.