Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-08-01 / 8. szám
FRATERNITY 17 The Effect of Mohács on the Outlook of the People The disaster at Mohács was a disaster indeed. After only a few months of plundering and looting, the Turks had reduced the population of the country by nearly 200,000 souls. Everywhere the Hungarian people were now put on the defensive against the Moslem invader. Moreover, aristocracy and peasantry suffered equally at the hands of the conqueror. The result was that together the two classes learned to identify the cause of the Christian faith with the national cause of Hungary, and together they found in the teachings of the Reformers that pure form of the Christian faith which they needed to infuse them with the strength necessary to resist the invader. The reformed faith brought with it, moreover, both a communal reformation in morals and an inner strength to the soul of the individual, conscious, as he became, of personal salvation in Christ. That is to say, to the Hungarian, without dubiety to be “reformed” at the time of the Reformation meant to experience a real conversion of heart. Wandering preachers made their appearance almost everywhere; when they could find a pulpit, they used it; when they could dispute in public, they gladly seized the chance; others of them furthered their teachings with the help of the pen; others again were active in hymn writing, storytelling, theological enquiry, drama, belles lettres, and the production of educational text-books; schools and printing presses sprang up, too; and so even under the rule of an alien conqueror the nation developed a new intellectual and spiritual life. In the independent north and west, now, of course, part of the Habsburg Empire, both the rulers and the priesthood remained the avowed enemies of this new intellectual ferment that was going on in the Turkish zone. Wherever and whenever the chance came their way, they dragged the “heretics” off to prison or even to the stake. Correspondence with abroad had survived from this period, and it is full of bitter complaints about
