Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
SPIRIT AND MOOD - The Strong Pillar of the College - Education in Theology and in the Liberal Arts
162 SECONDARY SCHOOL AND COLLEGE &IC, <" r-t.'/t/ Jenő Zoványi */ OU' The Zoványi Case One of Lajos Warga’s manuscripts was the source of a drawn-out conflict at the theological school in 1907, it even attracting national interest. The leadership of the church district commissioned Jenő Zoványi (1865-1958), teacher of Hungarian Protestant church history, to organize Wargas literary legacy under press and get his monographs on church history published. It seemed to be the fitting choice given that Zoványi had a good professional reputation in this field. He was bom into a Transylvanian Catholic family and studied at the Catholic seminary in Nagyvárad. He converted to Protestantism at the age of 18. He then enrolled in Patak and later pursued studies in Utrecht. Upon returning to Hungary, he worked as a private teacher in Sárospatak and then he worked in Transylvania as a pastor. He was invited to be a regular teacher in Patak in 1901 where he worked until he was suspended. Already back then he was considered a hopeful candidate and good writer of theology and church history. The leaders of the church district thus had every reason to believe he would do an excellent job organizing the work pertaining to the legacy of a former teacher. Zoványi, who was also known for his difficult personality and his frequent conflicts, decided upon a unique solution to complete this assignment. The book with his explanatory side notes and supplementary notes had already left the publishers when it was discovered, on the basis of his published notes, that he had taken a position exactly opposite to that ofWarga in evaluating the role and personality of John Calvin. Unlike Warga, he accorded Calvin a diminished role in the unfolding of the Reformation and questioned his unblemishedness, basing this on historical sources. Zoványi was immediately suspended and a disciplinary investigation procedure was initiated, all this causing somewhat of an uproar. While the national media and the church held lively debates about the extent of creative freedom, Zoványi filed appeals at every step of the procedure. Due to personality conflicts, the case was shifted from the courts of the Cistibiscan church district to that of the Dunamellék district. To the College leaders’ great shock, the court in Dunamellék sided with Zoványi. The case was at the focus of national attention with varying intensity between 1907 and 1913 and drew unfavorable attention from the press in Pest and Debrecen much to the chagrin of the College, which already had enough troubles. The situation was further complicated when Árpád Ferenczy, a teacher at the law school, had to be suspended, also. He had tendered a somewhat ambiguous letter of resignation, yet a few weeks later wanted to return to his post. The conflict with its cross-disciplinary accusations lasted for many years and it also cast a dark shadow on the Academy of Law which was already struggling for its survival. In 1914, one year after his rehabilitation, Zoványi left for Debrecen and became a professor at the university there. As a consequence of his comportment between 1918 and 1919, the church disciplinary court first stripped him of his pastoral mandate then forced him to retire from teaching in 1922. From this time on he conducted research work for close to four decades and, near the very end of his life, he was awarded a doctoral degree in 1956. He was often criticized by his colleagues for his difficult personality and penetrating academic conclusions. A good number of his assertions were often moderated by later researchers and historians. In spite of these foibles, it can be said that he was one of the most significant researchers of his age in the domain of Hungarian Protestantism history. His Encyclopedia of Church History as well as a variety of data research notes and papers are still indispensable for researchers.
