Egyháztörténeti Szemle 14. (2013)

2013 / 3. szám - SUMMARIES IN ENGLISH - Tóth Tamás Zoltán: Some Ethical Aspects of Simon Magus and the Simonian Practice. Discourse from Hippolytus's Refutatio VI. and the 'Explanation On The Soul' (Ex. An.)

Summaries in English

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Netherlands and Switzerland. During the whole journey, he studied the providing institutions for pastor families, the pastors’ widow- and orphan funds, and in general, the widow and orphan insurance providing systems. After his return, in his book he shows how the social problems of the reformed and evangelical pastors’ and teachers’ families were solved in those states (scholarships, allowances, pension, sustentation, institutions and funds). He used his most important international experiences for the establishment of a new providing institution in the Reformed Superintendency of Tiszáninnen in north-east Hungary in 1838. Because of his book, his insurance system project, and the significant donation he and his wife gave for the organization of this institution, Szemere became a well-known patron of pastor families.

The Career of József Gerely — Walls and Boundaries in the Life of the ‘Grey Eminent’ of the Hungarian Catholic Assemblies

Tibor Klestenitz

József Gerely (1871-1915) was one of the leading persons of the Catholic renewal that started after 1890 in Hungary. He is not well known today, but his contemporaries regarded him as ‘a ‘geschäftig’, smart clergyman, a good businessman and a widely travelled’ priest. He had a sort of modern, metropolitan career as he obtained influence and fortune not in one of the traditional ways - with scholarly achievements or with work in a bishop’s court or in the public administration -, but with profit-oriented enterprises, with publishing books and periodicals. This unusual career provoked sharp conflicts within the clergy as it can be demonstrated by the example of his public debates. The study tries to introduce this interesting person who was a remarkable educator, journalist, public speaker and debater at the same time.

Gerely started his career as a religion teacher at elementary schools in Budapest, and got notable publicity after he had written a new, modem school-book. As a practising teacher, he realised .that the usual, strictly theoretical catechism cannot reach its goal, and he tried to teach abstract theological theses in a more concretised form, with the help of biblical stories. After the success of his book he obtained a considerable capital that he invested in publishing periodicals: from 1908 onwards, he was the general editor of the daily paper Új Lap, and from 1902 he owned the weekly Egyházi Közlöny. In 1909, the latter one produced a net income of ten thousand crones.

In 1907, he used his influence at the VHth Catholic Assembly at Pécs in order to establish the Catholic Press Association that was aimed to improve the competitiveness of Catholic press in Hungary. It organised fund raisings on a regular basis all over the country, and it supported some pe-