Petrőczi Éva: Holt költők társaságában. A Puritanizmuskutató Intézet és a Medgyesi Pál Puritán Kiskönyvtár emlékére - Nemzet, egyház, művelődés 9. (Sárospatak, 2014)
István Czeglédi, the Martyr-Preacher of Kassa and a Faithful Student of the Netherlands
PETRŐCZI ÉVA: HOLT KÖLTŐK TÁRSASÁGÁBAN hroughout the last decade I dedicated four publications to the blessed memory of István Czeglédi who almost became a “galley slave” in 1671 which was a very tragic year for the Hungarian Calvinists and Lutherans.279 It was a mournful year of our Protestants, indeed; the counter-reformation - hand in hand with the Habsburg House — intended to annihilate even the traces of this spiritual revival of Europe from their territory.280 István Czeglédi who can be considered as one of our “puritanical” theologians, and who was always ready for debate and defending his denomination, was born in 1619. He studied at Nagyvárad (Grosswardein), at Debrecen and also at Sárospatak. He started his peregrination on 27th April 1644, studied at Franeker and Utrecht and at Leiden for shorter periods, but spent almost two years at the athenaeum of Deventer. After returning to Hungary, the most important town of his life and service in Hungary (actually in the area of his birth) became Kassa/Kaschau/Kosice, in the Highlands of Hungary, today Slovakia. During the almost twenty self-sacrificing years of his pastoral activity he was in charge there of building a new reformed church - with the financial support of the Rákóczi-family and also founding a good Calvinist school, based upon the model of his mostly beloved alma mater, the Reformed College of Sárospatak. In the background of all these activities — or rather parallel with them — he became one of the most fruitful polemic writers of the Hungarian reformation. On behalf of the Catholics the revenge was a horrible one; he was bereft of everything: his earthly goods, his books, his health, his freedom and finally of his life. On 27th May 1671 he was called - after a long period of arrest on wholly unjust charges — to the delegatum judicium, to the notorious martial court of Pozsony/Pressburg. He died en route, on a cart, accompanied by his wife, near to Nagyszombat (Tirnau, now: Tranava), at the age 51, after a long and hardly bearable period of humiliations, spiritual and mental torments. His sufferings were depicted in a ballad which was very popular (even with music!) until the beginning 279 Petrőczi Éva 2006/11; Petrőczi Éva 2008/11; Petrőczi Éva 2008/IV; Petrőczi Éva 2012. 280 About this sad days of Hungarian church history see: S. Varga Katalin 2002. 132
