Levéltári Közlemények, 92. (2021)

Magyarországi főegyházmegyei méltóságok - Somorjai Ádám OSB: Mindszenty hercegprímás a csehszlovákiai magyarság védelmében, 1945-1948. Vatikáni iratok alapján

Magyarországi főegyházmegyei méltóságok

ÁDÁM Somorjai OSB

PRINCE PRIMATE MINDSZENTY

IN

DEFENCE OF HUNGARIANS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA 1945-1948

Based on Vatican documents

Prince Primate József

Mindszenty,

Archbishop

of Esztergom, paid special attention to the fate of the territories north of the Danube. This was the greater part of his own diocese, the majority of which was inhabited by Hungarians, and which reverted to the Archdiocese of Esztergom between 1938 and 1945, following the decision of the Holy See after the First Vienna Award. Months after the end of the Second World War, but more than a year before the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty on 10 February 1947, in October 1945, this territory, which had been de facto re-occupied by Czechoslovakia, was again separated from the Archdiocese of Esztergom.

According to our research, the Archbishop wrote at least 87 letters directly to Pope Pius XII between 1944 and 1948, most of which are still unknown. Six of his letters in favour of the legal settlement of his diocese have already been published. In this publication, we present 21 other letters in which he went beyond the ecclesiastical situation and raised human rights issues.

Overall, we have found that between 1945 and 1948 he regularly wrote about the situation of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia to the Pope and the leaders of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See. He even threatened to resign when his intercessions were unsuccessful.

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