The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES - An Overview of Catholic Ecclesiastical Archives by Andor Lakatos

the 1960s and 1970s. The ecclesiastical archives were finally declared to be private archives of national interest. After dissolution of monastic orders, their archives were abolished with only some exceptions. Their materials were lost in the chaos that ensured nationalization-only a miniscule amount was salvaged and collected by monks or by the state archives of competence. In the spring of 1951 the National Centre of Archives ordered the directors of local archives to visit the ecclesiastical archives of their competence and make a report on their findings. In the autumn 1951 the Catholic Archives were drawn under a common procedure referring to protection of holdings. The new procedural rule mandated that two keys were needed to get into the store-houses, and a representative of the state and one representative of the church could only gain access of the archives when together. This was the condition until 1957 On the other hand, the favourable fact was that a basic inventory was made uniform for nearly every archives. In these the materials of the archives were of a thematic series. Making microfilms from outstanding source value, material began. At the end of 1950, as a part of the Archives inventory, the guide to the Archives of the Bishopric of Székesfehérvár and Archbishopric of Eger and later the Esztergom Primate were published. The decreelaw no. 27 of 1969, declared 23 Catholic Ecclesiastical Archives to be professional archives -20 bishop's and chapter's archives and 3 monastic archives. That spring the episcopacy formed the National Catholic Collection Centre. Together with other tasks, it had to coordinate the work of Catholic Archives and it had to act as an intermediary among the institutions of archives and the competent ministries. In the spring of 1971, the Administrative Regulation of Archives went into effect in the ecclesiastical professional archives, in which regulations became more consistent and uniform. As a result of these modifications, there were more and more research done in the ecclesiastical archives. In the years of 1950-1970, a priest nominated for the job of an archivistthis position used to be the archivist until the 1980s when the first civil servants entered the profession. Between 1983 and 1989 four courses were organized for ecclesiastical archivists in the Methodical Department of the New Hungarian Central Archives. In April 1981 the Section of the Archivists were formed within the Hungarian Librarians' Association and its successor, the Association of Hungarian Archivists in December 1986. The association has dealt with the problems of ecclesiastical archives from the very beginning and ecclesiastical archivists have been one of its members. In July 199, the Hungarian Section of the International Association of Ecclesiastical Archivists was formed in Debrecen and its successor the Association of Hungarian Ecclesiastical Archivists was formed in 1995. The associations provide a forum of professional relationship for ecclesiastical archivists.