Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
János Ugrai: „THE PERIOD OF NATIONAL ADVANCEMENT” 1777-1849 - Organizational changes - adumbration of episcopal power
cessation. Records indicate that three hundred thirty-seven parishes existed in the Cistibiscan church district during the first third of the 19th century along with two hundred fifty-two identifiable schools. In at least one third of these (eighty- five) schools, the enlisted teacher received no ‘academia promotio’. Accordingly, a distinct category of Particle schools can be identified which deviated from the course taken by the traditional Protestant school organizations previous to the era in question. ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES - ADUMBRATION OF EPISCOPAL POWER The Cistibiscan Church District of the Reformed Church was established at the end of the first third of the 18th century. Within its framework, a definitive process which marked this period began to unfold, that of the strengthening of orderly institutionalization. Integral to this was the augmenting in importance of the episcopal (superintendent) office. The heterogeneous mode of directing matters previously typical of the church district officers progressively diminished and the spheres of responsibility within the organization were relatively well- defined by the middle of the 19th century. This “institutionalization” was made applicable in several directions. Firstly, the rights and duties incumbent on the church district’s clerical and lay leadership (superintendant and chief lay officer), secondly, the rights and duties of the leaders of the church district, diocese (or church county) and parish (or congregation), and, thirdly, the rights and duties of the church and College leadership were identified and defined increasingly regularly. This, however, proved to be less than an unbroken, linear process. It generally held that the increase in importance of a given office was most often directly associated with active periods of service by assertive personalities while the retirement or death of the said individual would result in a certain amount of backtracking. During Sámuel Szalay’s tenure as superintendent (1770-1792), it was the episcopal initiatives which dominated. After his tenure, his dominating role was assumed by successors in other offices, primarily by József Vay and Gábor Lónyai who were the chief lay officers. This focus on the individual and the personality was evidence of the prevalence of the traditions and power mechanisms of old. In the Age of Reforms, however, this began to decline in rapid progression. This was partly due to initiatives of the joint national Protestant assembly and their joint active representation in parliamentary sessions of the Age of Reforms, and partly to the increasingly separated mode of inner function. By the 1840s, offices were already defined for long-term with minimum overlap and the influence and prestige of these offices now depended less on the disposition or judgement of the actual officer. The slow consolidation of the “seat of the bishop” symbolizes well and simultaneously complements this process. Such had not existed in the Cistibiscan church district before the beginning of the 19th century. In contrast to the superintendency as practised in the Tiszántúl church district - where the superiority of Debrecen was never to be questioned from the very beginning -, in the Cistibiscan district, it was the serving superintendent’s home site of pastoral Miklós Szemere (1802-1881) was a student in Patak. He wrote a poem about the Reformed Church pastor in Luka (Bodroghalom) who prayed for Joseph II in the following way: ‘And bless oh Lord, the one whom we have gathered to celebrate, Bless oh Lord, the King of Hungary. Forget oh Lord, that he is German, Ah, forgive him that, we ask you, Because he is your creation,, too.’
