The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)
ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES - The Archives of Lutheran Church byMiklós Czenthe
By Miklós Czenthe: The Archives of Lutheran Church 126 documents of church administration different congregations and private individuals were happy to donate their documents as well. Country clerks and knowledgeable collectors worked hard to obtain the important documents important from ecclesiastical history and to place them in this collection. The most notable among them is the document collection of Baron Miklós Jankovics who gave over the original will of Luther from 1542 to the Lutheran Church. Because of the drastic overhaul of church administration in 1952, all the material of the four episcopal offices were delivered. The documents of dioceses, of the evangelistic higher and secondary schools - which were nationalized between 1948 and 1952 as in the secondary school of Fasor, the Faculty of Theology, Divinity in the town of Sopron, the Academy of Law in the town of Miskolc / - and the documents of abolished ecclesiastical congregations were collected. The bequests of several precious ecclesiastical figures were acquired by the archives. These influential figures played very important roles, not only in church administration, in the history of Church or theology but also in cultural or social activities of country importance. At present the archives preserve about 1,000 linear meters material. Every year we accept 80-90 researchers from Hungary and abroad so that they may search data for scientific, ecclesiastical and private purposes. Special catalogues were made for the history of congregations and biographical data of clergymen. Six significant congregations of Lutheran Church maintain congregational archives of higher priority where an archivist helps research in a separate room. These congregations are:in Békéscsaba, Győr, Nyíregyháza, Orosháza, Sopron, Szarvas, in each of which 20-100 linear meter material is kept . The archival material of others, or smaller congregations is maintained on site, in the guidance of the congregation - including the ecclesiastical registers, too - in these places the priests take care of the documents. Details from the Will of Martia Luther
