Magyar News, 2004. szeptember-2005. augusztus (15. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2004-11-01 / 3. szám
When people think of Christianity in Hungary, the standard perception is of a Roman Catholic country with a significant Protestant minority in the form of the Calvinistic Reformed (Református) church. But, both historic and present-day Hungary also had another smaller, but locally-important Protestant minority — the Lutheran Church, often called the Evangélikus church. From the time of the Reformation in the 16th century until the present, Lutheranism was particularly important in historic Sopron and Vas counties and to their south and east in parts of Győr, Veszprém, and Zala counties — in other words, the entire northwest of present-day Hungary known as Trans- Danubia (Dunántúl). In the larger cities and towns of that area, many of the Lutherans were of German origin. But, in the smaller towns and villages tens-ofthousands of Magyars were — and still are — also Lutheran adherents. As a Family Historian, whose paternal grandfather's ancestors were all Lutherans from Vas and Sopron counties, I've had to deal extensively with Lutheran church records in Hungary. You will likely need to do the same if your Protestant ancestors came from that area. It presents some unique challenges because of the history of the area. Here's a summary of the current family history research situation for those of us whose ancestors lived in the northwestern part of present-day Hungary. Most of us should be able to trace our ancestors back rather easily to about 1830. The complete baptismal/birth, marriage, and death/burial registers (anyakönyvek) 1600's, these anti-Protestant efforts focused on the northwest part of historic Hungary that was under Habsburg control. After a decade of extremely violent anti-Protestant initiatives, the Habsburg King Leopold in 1681 issued a decree at the Diet of Sopron which granted freedom of religion to Protestants, albeit with many constraints. Protestants were permitted to maintain their churches in county seats, and worship in private homes was uninhibited. This allowed some wealthy Protestant nobles to maintain private chapels in their homes for their families and servants. In 1691 the situation was further clarified by his Explanatio Leopoldina (King Leopold's Explanation). In this second part of the so-called Sopron Articles, the King defined several "articulated places" - a specific and short list of towns and villages in the north and west of the country which were permitted to retain Lutheran churches. Basically, two or three places in each of eleven historic northwestern counties (which now are in Slovakia and Hungary) were designated. In other areas of Hungary existing Protestant - primarily Reformed - churches were permitted to continue to operate. Everyone was unhappy with the Sopron Articles. The Catholic clerics viewed them as a concession to the Protestants. The Protestants, especially the Lutherans of the northwest, viewed them as a threat to confiscate or close most of their remaining churches - which in fact later happened. The Habsburg Kings were slow in enforcing these articles due to the on-going Turkish wars, and later the Rákóczi rebellion of the early 1700's. But, when that of virtually every congregation - Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish - of that region exist for the period 1828-1895 and are easily accessible in the U.S. through your local Family History Center (see End Notes). Those church records for some Protestant congregations date back to the 1780's. In Hungary, it was not until 1895 that civil records of births, marriages, and deaths were required. While Roman Catholic records exist for the earlier part of the 1700's, Protestant records in this region only exist for the few churches that were allowed by the Habsburgs to remain open. Therefore, the 1700-1780 period is a rather difficult time to trace your Lutheran ancestors. Prior to 1700, Roman Catholic records exist only for a handful of larger cities, and Lutheran records only exist for the city of Sopron. So, those who can trace their ancestors with certainty before 1700 are few and far between. The Lutheran church registers of the city of Sopron date back to 1624 and are among the oldest church records in the entire country. If you'll forgive a brief departure into general historic detail, I'll set the stage for helping you to research your family's history in northwestern Humgary. Protestantism came to Hungary within a decade of Martin Luther nailing his 95-theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. By the late 1500's, Hungary was for all practical purposes a Protestant nation. By then, Protestantism began to differentiate into its two major branches, Lutheran and Calvinist. But, Hungary's Habsburg rulers remained staunch Roman Catholics and supported the so-called counter-reformation that encouraged - sometimes quite forcefully - the return to Catholicism. Since much of Hungary was under Turkish occupation in the late 1500's and early A Lutheran Church in Nemesdömölk Lutheranism and Family History in Trans-Danuhia by Vic Berecz Page 5 The Lutheran Church of Sopron in the center of the old city
