Erős Vár, 1948 (18. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1948-10-01 / 10-11. szám
2 ERŐS VÁR the larger part of the country by the Turks for the next one hundred and fifty years. The reformation movement of Martin Luther and John Calvin spread rapidly over the entire land. Under the weight of heavy tribulations, with an elementary strength there broke forth from the suffering Hungarian soul a spiritual thirst for the living God, which nothing could quench but the pure preaching of the Gospel. During this period of time Hungary was divided into two parts: the one part remaining under Turkish rulership, and the other under the rule of the Hapsburgs. Through both of these parts the Lutheran and the Helvetic reformation movements spread rapidly. A large number of the Roman Catholic Churches were absorbed by the two Protestant Churches, and many new ones were built so that, by the end of the sixteenth century, more than threefourth of Hungary was either Lutheran or Reformed. The beginning of the seventeenth century, however saw the dawn of the counter-reformation, and every imaginable pretext was used by the Crown and by the clergy to utterly destroy the power of hated Protestantism. The beginning of this purge was marked by cruel bloodshed in Western Hungary, where a whole town, the town of Csepreg, with the fifteen hundred inhabitants, was ruthlessly exterminated. Moreover, for a period of more than a century and a half, bloody persecutions followed. The leader of this counter-reform ait on movement was Peter Pázmány, a Jesuit, who was himself a converted Protestant. In that part of Hungary which was under the Turkish protectorate, the Protestants enjoyed some liberties; but after the expulsion of the Turks, vigorous persecutions were begun there also. The royal family of the Hapsburgs and the Hungarian aristocrats, who were all of the Roman faith, and the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy used every means at their command to wipe out from the face of the land the two Protestant Churches. Lutheran and Reformed ministers and prominent Protestant laymen were imprisoned, and their own properties, as well as the properties of the church, were confiscated. Under the pretext of “high treason” “conspiracy with the Turks”, etc., many of them were mercilessly sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Fourty-one Lutheran ministers and schoolmasters, who could not be bent or broken in any other way, were, in 1674, as a deterrent example to the rest, condemned to be sold as galley slaves to the Spanish fleet in Naples at the price of $100.00 per head. During the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the militant and violent spirit of the counter-reformation gradually decreased somewhat, and the Hungarian Lutherans were given a meager chance to unfold their inner constructive life. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a royal decree granted “toleration” to the Protestants. This socalled “toleration” permitted exactly eleven places in all of Hungary to be set aside as places of worship for the Protestants of either the Lutheran or the Calvinistic faith. It was during this time that our Lutheran church services became simplified under Calvinistic influence, and the pastors of both faiths served in brotherly love the membership of the Protestnt Churches that still remained. Lutheran and Reformed church buildings were not allowed to stand on open streets — only in courtyards; and the use of church bells was strictly forbidden. During the reign of Emperor Charles III, and Empress-Queen Maria Theresa (from 1711 to 1780) the malignant- hand of ill-will hung heavily over the Hungarian-Protestant Church, and no actual relief was felt until the reign of Joseph II, who was an ardent admirer of the Prussian King Frederick. To illustrate the change for the better, I have chosen just one of the numerous cases depicting the unshaken faith and determination which kept the Lutheran faith alive within the hearts of the believers, despite the untold sufferings and cruel persecutions which they had to withstand daily. The Lutheran church members of eighteen villages in Western Hungary had for many years petitioned the Crown for a royal grant permitting them to erect their own church, and finally the Emperor sent a Royal Commissioner to investigate their plea. As he went through the various eighteen villages, he suddenly stopped at a particular spot that happened to overlook a vast and seemingly endless swampland. Picking up a stone from the ground, he threw it into the center of the swamp, and turning to the Lutheran church members who had accompained him on his trop, he said, “Right there is the place, in the middle of that swamp, where you may erect your house of worship.” It took the people of the eighteen villages 25 years to carry stones to the swamp in order to fill it up completely and build upon it their mighty fortress, the Lutheran Church of Celdomolk. In 1848 and 1849, the Hungarian nation fought a desperate revolutionary war for their independence and freedom against the terroristic rulership of the Hapsburgs, and the members of both the Protestant Churches took an active part in this dire struggle against oppression. The leader of this revolution (and later the first President of the new Hungarian Republic) was a Lutheran by the name of Louis Kossuth. The aid of the Russians, suDpresed the nation’s battle for freedom and liberty, and far
