Liszka József (szerk.): Az Etnológiai Központ Évkönyve 2008-2009 - Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 10-11. (Dunaszerdahely-Komárno, 2009)

Tanulmányok - Bárth Dániel: A nyugati és a keleti kereszténység határá. Vallási együttélés és konfliktusok a dél-magyarországi Bácskában a 18. században (Összefoglalás)

that in the last decades of the 18"’ century the same royal court promoted the settlement of Lutheran Germans. Moreover, in course of organized migration Uniate Ruthenians also moved to Bácska from the far north-eastern region of Hungary. And finally, the greater proportion of this new population gradually and spontaneously moved to Bácska from northern and southern parts of the country. Spontaneous migration brought here mostly Hungarians, but to a lesser extent Slovaks and Germans as well. In addition, small Armenian colonies also settled down for example in Újvidék/Novi Sad (Gyetvai 1992; Bárth J. 1996, 37—45).

The distribution of the population in terms of nationality and religion was continuously changing in course of the 18th century, but unfortunately, these tendencies can hardly be tracked down due to lack of related statistics. We have at our disposal more or less exact data only from the 19th century. What can be pointed out with certainty is that the population of this region was extremely complex from both religious and ethnic aspects. At the end of the 18th century almost 400.000 people lived in about 100 settlements. Although the religious and ethnic diversity was characteristic of villages, it can be more clearly disclosed in the case of towns. Approximately two thirds of the population was Roman Catholic, and one fourth was (Greek) Orthodox. To this rates should be added the Protestant population (about 10 %) and the Jewish people (about 1 %). As far as the ethnic distribution is concerned, we may detect a relative majority of Hungarians besides which the number of Germans, Serbs and Roman Catholic South Slavic people was also considerable. The number of Slovaks, Ruthenians and Jewish people figured out only some percents (Bottlik 2003).

The religious distribution only partly indicated ethnic frontiers, but in some cases we may observe a tight connection between ethnic and religious identity. What can be stated for sure is that the Serbs were Orthodox, the above-mentioned South Slavic people were Roman Catholics, the Ruthenians and the Armenians were Greek Catholics, while the Jewish were Israelite. This situation was not so simple and clear with other nationalities. The majority of the Hungarians in Bácska were Roman Catholic, but also considerable groups of Hungarians were Protestant. The majority of Protestant Hungarians were Calvinist. Besides the Roman Catholic Germans, Lutheran and to a lesser extent Calvinist Germans also lived in this region. The overwhelming majority of the Slovaks in Bácska were Lutherans, and a minority of them were Roman Catholic (Bárth J. 1995, 11-19).

As it might be clear from this brief overview, the population of Bácska was really fairly various both in religious and in ethnic teims. Nevertheless, in compliance with their number within the whole population and due to the state administrative and royal decrees it was obviously the Roman Catholic Church whose privileges prevailed in the period. The whole region belonged to the Central Hungarian Kalocsa diocese and was under the authority of the archbishop of this diocese. This authority predominated not only over the Roman Catholic, but to some extent over each denomination.

Distinguished attention was paid to the eastern Christians who had entered a union with Rome, since then the Greek Catholic liturgy and church organization was only taking form. The majority of the Uniate Ruthenian population could be found in two villages in Bácska. On the occasion of bishop’s visitations the problems arising from the union were listed, and the related decrees indicate for us the difficulties inherent in the procedure. Let me refer to some peculiar features of the wedding ritual in Hungary, namely the issue of wedding oath. During the 18th century in the Ruthenian villages of Bácska a

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