Fraternity-Testvériség, 1959 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1959-09-01 / 9. szám

FRATERNITY

HISTORY

OF THE

HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH

By

IMRE REVESZ, Th. D.

Translated by

GEORGE A. F. KNIGHT II

THE VICTORY OF THE COUNTERREFORMATION

1608—1715

(Continuation)

There was some degree of result to this Peace of Linz. The 1647 national assembly adopted all its clauses, but of the 400 confiscated Protestant churches only 90 were ever returned. Other clauses in the Peace were so disregarded in actual practice that the Protestant peasantry were in just as bad a case as ever they had been before. Moreover, after Rakoczy’s death Hungary could no longer look to Transylvania for help against the Habsburgs. George Rakoczy II was not the man his father was, and in later years the dynasty lost its prestige. Thus it came about that Transylvania itself was no longer able to resist the encroachment of the Counter-Reformation within its borders.

These struggles for freedom were taking place, however, only in the Habsburg Kingdom and in Transylvania to the east. In the centre of Hungary and in the south the Sultan was still the master. Just at the time when those two areas of Hungary ought to have united to drive out the Turk, instead they were at daggers drawn with each other. Little change, meanwhile, was taking place internally in the Turkish area, and naturally