Itt-Ott, 1992 (25. évfolyam, 1/119-3/121. szám)

1992 / 1. (119.) szám

only be built on communal property, and no Christian should be able to say “This penny is mine.” (This is like the communal way of life among the Moravian Brethren.) Nor could one justify marital fidelity or the oath of fealty, because Jesus had abolished oaths, and in order to give heart to criminals, Elias maintained that it was God who had caused crime and not man himself. Besides all this, the pastor advised that no one should fight against the conquering Turks, because they were the greatest power on earth and therefore the authority. The Anabaptists hoped that the Turks would conquer Germany, and then they would be free of persecution (Pál 1963, 313).

After all these utterances, Pastor Elias fled from Kolozsvár under cover of darkness and did not stop until he had reached Poland. He was apparently afraid to wait for the plebeians to express their opinions on his ideas.

Later, Dávid himself stated in an article, “The reign of Christ,” that the millenium would not be brought about by a revolution of the people, but by God.

It seems clear that the theological nihilism of Elias would have led to social anarchy. Perhaps this contributed to the subsequent action taken by the civil government, which put a ban on religious innovation, and that at the very time when Dávid proclaimed that the millenium would soon arrive in Kolozsvár, in 1570 to be precise.

Church Synods of the Diet of Torda

The revived battles of the confessions of Transylvania took place at the religious synods (vallási zsinatok) under the leadership of Dávid and Blandrata. Since the entire political and religious energy of Transylvania was being absorbed by the Protestant Reformation, the Diet of the temporal powers organized and directed these synods on the basis of ius reformandi. It was at these frequently held meetings that the nation’s elite gave full vent to their intellectual energy. Finally, these synods became forums for the discovery of talent that often lay hidden until it was brought to the surface and enriched the society with its genius. The life stories of Francis Dávid and of Péter Melius-Juhász illustrate this. Later, at these same synods, the intelligentsia of Europe’s generation of humanists and reformers met.

Toward the end of the sixteenth century, it was at these synods that the Hungarian people were being educated, and the result was that ninety percent of them became Protestants, so that after an overwhelming percentage of the nation had converted to a new faith, there was no need to grapple with a Roman Catholic minority. The dogmatic struggles of the new confessions consumed each other’s energies, however, within the churches themselves. The Protestant leaders, fighting each other, confirmed the saying of St. Augustine that “as long as heretics destroy each other, the Mother Church can enjoy peace” (Bellum hereticorum pax est Ecclesiae).

Francis Dávid was the hero of these synods. He lived in a dramatic age and was himself a dramatic personality, driven by Protestantism and by his limitless demands for freedom. Dávid’s sustaining strength came from the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. The idea of semper reformare determined and captivated him, made him the slave of his arguments.

In his favor it can be said that he would not proclaim a word which, according to his own judgement, was not blessed by the Lord. Later, at his final trial, his last act was in defense of freedom of thought and conscience, just as had been that of John Huss, his spiritual brother.

Transylvania was an independent province of the Kingdom of Hungary, and its political legacy included three different national groups. These were the Hungarians, the Székelys (Szekler, Siculi), and the German-Saxons, who constituted a confederation not unlike the later Swiss Confederation, for in Transylvania, too, a political symbiosis of three ethnic groups existed, which developed a tolerant coexistence of various confessions. At the time of the Reformation, the three national groups represented four officially recognized religious denominations and drew up an edict (previously referred to) on religious freedom based on the Bible. “Faith is a gift of God. Secular powers cannot give it nor can they take it away; they are only obliged to serve it (Szilágyi 1857).” At the meeting of the Diet the theologians of all three ethnic groups founded their own organizations, discussed dogma, and if the case arose, turned to foreign theologians for advice.

At a meeting of the Synod, authorized by the political Diet in 1568, for example, the Unitarian voivode strengthened the Synod’s decision on unlimited freedom of religion:

According to this, preachers can preach the Gospel everywhere, some according to their own interpretation if this has been accepted by the congregation. No one can be forced to accept it, but let each congregation keep the kind of preacher it likes... It is not permitted to mock anyone for his religious convictions. It is not permitted to punish anyone with imprisonment for his teaching, or to deprive him of his livelihood, because faith is a gift of God and comes from a sense of hearing, and hearing is the treasure that comes from God’s Word (Erdélyi országgyűlési emlékek 1877, 2:343).

At this Synod of 1568, we note that it was the first time in Europe that unlimited freedom was sanctioned, and with it a new confession came officially into existence, Unitarianism. (In contrast the Diet of the western part of the Hungarian Kingdom, ruled by the Habsburg Maximilian, declared that “all antitrinitarians ought to be burned and their books with them” (1572).

Francis Dávid, the Voivode, John Sigismund, and Blandrata were the founders of this confession, but they were not ready yet to detach themselves as an independent church organization.

The following synod, held at Alba Julia (Gyulafehérvár) broke up without achieving any concrete result. The increasingly radically oriented Unitarians continued along their dialectical way. Nevertheless, there was still an impact on history, because the HelrTT-OTT 25. évi. (1992), 1. (119.) szám 27