The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES - The Archives of Lutheran Church byMiklós Czenthe

BY MIKLÓS CZENTHE THE ARCHIVES OF LUTHERAN CHURCH T

he Hungarian Lutherans live within the framework of the Hungarian Lutheran / Evangelistic Church. There used to be about 1 million Lutherans at the beginning of the 20

th century Their numbers have decreased since then. The census of 2001 counted 304,000 Lutherans in Hungary. There are Lutherans in sporadic all over Hungary After the spreading of the Reformation, the followers of Lutheran and Calvin, organized into separate churches, namely into the Evangelistic, of the Augustan Confession and into the reformed, Presbyterian, Calvinistic churches. Geographically most of the Lutherans could be found in Western and Northern Hungary, (the present Slovakia) the Reformed, Presbyterian mostly could be found in Eastern and Central Hungary. The nationality of Lutherans was of hetergeneous origins.They were German and Slovakian besides Hungarians; the reformed were mostly Hungarian. Typical Lutheran centres were German styled towns such as Sopron, Selmecbánya, Besztercebánya, Lőcse and Eperjes. In these centres, despite the counterreformation of the 17

th and 18

th century, there remained a significant number of Lutherans. After surviving times of persecution and oppression and after the Edict of Tolerance in 1781, they rebuilt their churches, schools and institutions. The Lutherans were organized in four districts from the 18

th century, at the head was the superintendant , later the bishop and mainly the noble supervisors who played as patrons. The names of the four districts remained until the year of 1952. These were: Dunáninneni, Bányai, Dunántúli and Tiszai. Cis-Danubian, from Bánya, TransDanubian and from the Tisza. The church districts were classified into dioceses, seniorates, at the head with the dean, senior .The country organization of the Evangelistic church meant a lose connection of the four districts in the 18

th and 19

th centuries under the name of universal up to 1967 and today country church. A stronger organization was formed during the 20

th century. The universal convention decided in 1812 to create the archives of the universal church in the new developing capital of the country, Pest, Archívum Generalis Ecclesiae. For one hundred years it was housed in a school building of the Evangelistic, Lutheran congregation on Deák square and since 1908, it has been in the country centre at 24. Üllői road, district VIII. The material of the archives has been increased through country collections. And besides the official