Magyar Egyház, 1976 (55. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1976-01-01 / 1-2. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 5 MAGYAR CHURCH HUNGARIAN GALLEY SLAVE MINISTERS I am very grateful to God that I am a member of the Hungarian Reformed Church. I wholeheartedly love my sacred faith. I am very thankful that God has given to my beloved church such a wonderful and glorious history. The Hungarian Reformed Church history is as glorious as that of the French Huguenots or the Dutch Church, which is full of suffering, blood, and persecution. The Hungarian galley-slave ministers wrote their names on the golden pages of Christianity. The Reformation spread in Hungary like a forest fire. One Catholic priest complained at the end of the 16th Century that only three Catholic aristocrats remained true to the Catholic church. 90% of the population became Protestant. In the 16th Century Hungary was divided into three parts: (a) the Western part belonged to the Hapshurg dynasty; (b) another part was occupied by the Turkish Army; (c) a third — Transylvania was independent — where they lived a free national life. The Hungarian population at that time, because of many miseries, wars, and persecutions, found their comfort in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Hungarian reformers, like the Apostles, untiringly proclaimed the gospel. They taught the people a pure form of Christian faith. With this faith, they were able to survive their terrible persecution. Many times they were robbed and forced out of their homes. Whole villages were burned. Then came the 17th Century, a terrible time of Counter Reformation. When the Jesuits came into the country, they began to persecute the Protestants with the help of German mercenaries. They went from village to village taking over 888 churches. The ministers were driven out of their villages; sometimes beaten, sometimes killed. In Ekel a minister named John Szaki was tortured. They poured hot lead ore upon his shaved head; then covered him with wax and burned him alive. His wife was beheaded. The Cardinals and Bishops boasted that they converted thousands and thousands into the Catholic faith by force. Members of the Jesuit Order went everywhere and tortured the people who remained faithful to their own faith. This order had one aim — to annihilate Hungarian Protestants, especially Hungarian Calvinists with the Hungarian Constitution. When the situation became intolerable, Stephen Bocskai, a Prince of Transylvania, with his Army went against Vienna. He compelled the Hapsburg King to make peace in 1606. In this Peace of Vienna, the people were to have the freedom of religion. Of course, this remained a promise on paper only, because the Hapsburg Kings never kept their promises. They continued their persecution of Hungarian Protestants. Peter Pázmány, a born Calvinist who became Jesuit and who became the Prince Primate of Hungary, with persuasion, with promises, with threats, converted the former Protestant aristocrats over to the Catholic faith. The land owners, the feudal magnates, barons and counts became very eager Catholics. They compelled the village people to follow in their faith. They proclaimed that the aristocrats who owned land had the right to choose their own religion. Each land owner compelled the peasants to accept the religion he himself professed. They took away the churches. They expelled the ministers, and replaced them with Catholic priests. The Peace of Vienna was forgotten. Catholic clergy persuaded and molested the Protestant people in the Western part of Hungary. In the Turkishoccupied zone, the Calvinists lived peacefully. (Of course, they had to pay high taxes.) In Transylvania, which was far from Vienna and Esztergom, the people could practice their own faith. Later, the persecution was so vehement that the Prince of Transylvania, Gabriel Bethlen, led his army against the Hapsburgs three times. He forced the Hapsburg dynasty to keep the Peace of Vienna and give religious freedom to the people of Hungary. After Bethlen’s death, again, the Jesuits and the loyal German mercenaries, and the high priests of
