Gál Judit: Adatok a váci ortodox keresztény közösség történetéhez - Váci levéltári füzetek 2. (Vác, 2010)

Név- és helynévmutató

DATA CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN ORTODOX COMMUNITY OF VÁC

Introduction (p. 13; 151)

From among the historical minorities living on the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom, the Serbs were the first to arrive on Hungarian territory. During the reigns of Sigismund and Matthias (15th century) Serbian flotillas of sloops served as patrol boats on the Danube. The advance of the Turks on the Balkans generated a lasting Northern exodus, especially towards Transylvania and the Hungarian Kingdom. During the whole period of the Turkish occupation (1526-1686) Orthodox Christian or Islamized Serbian army and Balkan („Greek", Armenian, etc.) merchants were present in Hungary. The mass movement of the Serbians and non-Slavic population along with them toward the North started after the failure of the Vienna-backed rebellion against the Turks in 1690. Leopold I gave the refugees arriving in Hungarian territory a number of privileges: tax exemption, exemption from military service, freedom of religious practice, also covering the building of churches. In 1690, the Serbs arriving in Hungary settled down in Baranya and Tolna in greater numbers, as well as in settlements along the Danube all the way up to Szentendre, which became the most important center of the Serbian Orthodox church and Serbian culture in Hungary.

In a number of Hungarian towns, Orthodox communities did not exclusively consist of residents of Serbian nationality, but were joined by the so-called "Greek" members of the church. A mixed community of this type, with Serbian majority, existed, for instance, in Mohács, Siklós, Pécsvárad and Székesfehérvár, as well as Pest, Buda and Szentendre. In certain places, in contrast, such as Tokaj, Miskolc, Gyöngyös, Karcag, Kecskemét, Nagykőrös and Szentes, as well as Vác itself, the membership of the orthodox community consisted either exclusively or mostly of "Greeks".

Those historical studies that pay more significant attention to the issue all agree that the "Greek" merchants present in Hungary especially in the 17th and 18th centuries were of Aromanian ethnicity almost without exception. Aromanian population typically lived in the Romanized hill towns in the Via Egnatia area. The vast majority of "Greeks" in Pest and Miskolc came from the City of Moscopole, the biggest center of the Aromanian population in the Balkans. The 18th-century „Greeks" in Vác partly came from Shipska, partly from Moscopole; today both cities are on the territory of Albania.