The National Archives of Hungary (Budapest, 2006)

ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHIVES - The Archives of the Hungarian Calvinist Church by Erzsébet Horváth, István Szabadi, Márk Szentimrei, József Hadi, Edit Nagy

RÁDAY ARCHIVES OF THE CALVINIST CHURCH DISTRICT ALONG THE RIVER DANUBE The maintainer of the Ráday Archives is the Church District along the River Danube of the Hungarian Calvinist Church. The Ráday collection includes a library archives and a museum works in the frames of the Ráday College. Its collection area is the documents of the church district that involves the dioceses, parishes, schools and other church institutions and documents of significant people taking part in or being in connection with Calvinist church. Its oldest document derives from 1204. There are 350 fonds in 850 linear metres. 'Diarium famulorum../ Two thirds of the documents are those of the (1771, Debrecen) Calvinist Church District and its Institutions along the River Danube. The oldest protocollum of the church district started in 1626. We have administrative documents in bigger quantity from 1790 and we have diocesan records from the second half of the 1700s. We keep the documents of 60 congregations out of the 300 parishes that belong to the church district (the rests are on the location or in the archives of the diocese), most of them are from the 19

th and 20

th century. Historical dioceses of the church districts are: Alsóbaranya, Felsőbaranya, Kecskemét,Külsősomogy, Pest (from 1932 Budapest, from 1938 Belsőbudapest, Külsőbudapest and Pestkörnyék), Solt, Tolna, Vértesalja then from 1955 Bácskiskunság, Baranya, Budapest-Dél, Budapest-Észak, Eszakpest, Délpest, Tolna, Vértesalja. Among the documents of the institutions there can be found the documents of Budapest Theological Academy - nowadays Divinity Faculty of Károli Gáspár Calvinist University - and the documents of Budapest Lónyai Seconday Grammar School and BadrMadas Secondary Grammar School. In the other great group of the collection fonds there are documents under the name of Archívum Agentiale sources like Szemeretár relating to the 19

th century, feney collection relating to the 16

th and 17

th century just like the Daróczy genealogical collection of Johannita Archives. The very first place among the family and personal bequests is that of the Archives of Ráday family. Most of the hundred documents are from before the battle of Mohács. The most important source publication among them is the