Magyar Egyház, 1956 (35. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)

1956-06-01 / 6-7. szám

14

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

ALEXANDER UNGHVARY

In the thirties of the 16th century the picture of ecclesiastical life in Hungary underwent a sudden change. Types of humanists and diplomats, like Szálkái, who was for years Primate of Hungary without ever having been ordained, or like Count D’Este who was appointed archbishop, when only 7 years old, had entirely disappeared from view.

During this early stage of the reformation it is the preacher who will translate the Word of God, write, print, publish and sell the good and comforting word for which the age thirsted so much. This new type of writer will throw himself into the unbrideled fight of those disputes on which more than once his life will depend, for sometimes the loser in the dispute paid with his life. We should remember that Hungarian Protestantism produced not a single conspicuous personality who would not have been subjected to torture or thrown into jail. Those preachers were steadily on the run, either fleeing from aristocrats or prelates, or coming from the Habsburg dominated part of the land to the Ottoman dominated one and begging admission.

They rushed from one end of the land to the other attending religious disputes. Once a new book was published, they put their heads together and discussed its new theological points of view. There was hardly one of them who would not have attended universities abroad for years and would not have come home, often only to flee again to the freedom of foreign countries.

One of the first representatives of the Hungarian Reformation was Matthias Devay Biro who by his epoch was found worthy of being called “Lutherus Hungaricus” the Hungarian Luther.

Place and time of his birth are as little known as time and circumstances of his death. When he enters the scene in 1523, he just came back from Cracow University. He begins his activity as a Franciscan monk, but already in 1529 we find him in Wittenberg sitting at the feet of Luther.

We must think of him as a close disciple of Luther, who lives in Wittenberg, thanks to the doctor’s hospitality who later becomes his friend, returning to him more than once in the course of the struggles of his life. With Luther’s letter of introduction Devay Biro returns to Buda to start his activity as a preacher, and very soon he also enters the fight for the new Word as a writer.

Already in 1531 Devay Biro publishes his first work “Rudimenta Salutis.” (Elements of Salvation) and in its introduction sums up his 52 theses of the reforms. In the same year his first polemic work comes from the printing press: “De sanctorum dormitione” (on the sleeping of the saints). He already sees the hurdles of the church put between the soul and God, and meditates on the encounter with Jesus Christ. One of the obsticles according to him is the adoration of the bones and relics of saints.

Later he is brought to Vienna to undergo an inquisition by Faver the Bishop of Constance. A sheep of his flock, however, helps him to escape from Vienna

and in the following year we find him again preaching the gospel in Buda. Then, Buda changes its master, King Ferdinand loses the Hungarian capital and now it is the new king John who throws Devay into jail for having preached the reforms “ in all too original form.” After two years he emerges from prison with heavy symptoms of an approaching blindness. Nevertheless he is challenged to attend a new disputation, the subject of which should be the new book of Stephen Szegedi Kis, who wanted to prove “the errors of Devay Biro” in a book which was published in 1535 Wien. Upon the challenge, Devay, partly in order to cure his poor eyes partly to publish his new work, written in jail, quickly departs to Nürnberg, where his friend Th. Veidt is already printing the book “Expositio Examinis”. From there he hurries to Wittenberg, where Melanchton describes him in a letter as “a man with exceptional faith, prudence doctrine and piety.”

Later we see him in Basle with Grynaeus who was professor at Buda University. Devay has printed here another book: “Disputatio de statu” (Disputation of the state of grace.)

In 1538 he teaches and preaches again in Hungary. But now another Roman Catholic bishop sets out to persecute him, but Devay manages to escape. He writes one of his most noted books “Orthographia Hungarica” (On the rules of Hungarian grammar). At the same time he remodels Luther’s short catechism and translates Paul’s epistles into Hungarian. Again he goes to Cracow and publishes in that city in 1538 the first text book of theology written in Hungarian in the framework of an “Explanation of the Ten Commandments.”

A new persecution flares up and Devay saves his life by fleeing to Wittenberg where he lives in Melanchton’s house. Both Luther and Melanchton showed their Hungarian disciple much friendship.

But the orthodox Lutherans of the Saxon cities of Upper Hungary brought charges against Devay to Wittenberg, and accused him of seeking a middle position between Zwingli and Luther concerning the Lord’s Supper.

Devay’s fidelity to the Lutheran tendency is above suspicion, but it is a fact that he once lived in Switzerland and there had ample opportunity to familiarize himself with the Calvinistic doctrines.

Devay’s activities stirrep up the whole country, his books and disputes helped formulate the first theses of Protestantism. Now as a voluntary traveler, now as a refugee he shuttled through and fro between the spiritual centers of Europe and always kept pace with the intellectual developement of the continent. Being strong in his faith for this very reason, he was also tolerant. Thus he became the consoler and prophet of a whole nation fallen into misery.

All of a sudden, Devay is lost to sight. Maybe he died during one of his voyages abroad. Bom out of the religious longings of centuries in travail, the fame of his great faith is preserved by his late descendants in a century of pain and sorrow.

MATHIAS DEVAY BIRO, THE HUNGARIAN LUTHER . . .