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 umvirate”!) who had numerous Dutch connections. Moreover, after becoming heavily indebted, mainly because of his international Christian activities, among others, building up an informational basis of the puritan thinkers of the world, escaped - in 1672 — to the Netherlands, to his brethren, and never returned to England. One of Hartlib’s daughters, Nan married a wealthy Fifth Monarchist from Utrecht, Jan Roth (Roder ).283 The very fact of the continuous later presence of the Netherlands in Czeglédi’s publications can be partly due to Comenius, who - after the four years spent at the Sárospatak Reformed College - became in the last years of his life an honoured guest-tutor of Amsterdam. Therefore the Comenius - István Czeglédi meetings and discussions at Sárospatak could greatly help to brush up Czeglédi’s memories about the country of his peregrination. As for the Amsterdam-period of the great Johannes Amos: it’s sure that there he was also visited by some Hungarians, including a theologian, István Diószegi Kis, translator of the Spiritual Weapon of Hendrik van Diest, who was the Dutch tutor number one of our main hero at Deventer.284 We’ll return to Diest later. But, though István Czeglédi was not young enough to be a formal student of Comenius at Sárospatak, they certainly met — as we have already suggested before - during the four-years-long stay of the famous Bohemian educator in North Hungary. Therefore, let us stress once more, that - with great probability - he was the very person whose sympathy towards his Dutch brethren and colleagues might help Czeglédi so faithfully remember the Netherlands, even long after his return to Hungary. He and many other Hungarian students of the 17th century looked upon this country as an intellectual ferry-boat between Eastern and Western Europe and an absolute shelter of the bests of the Protestant thinkers of the age. The practical side of the Comenius-Czeglédi personal connection can be easily proved. As we have already mentioned, the reformed school of Kassa was consciously built up by Czeglédi according to the Sárospatak model, from its schedule to putting Protestant school-dramas upon the stage, also in the style of the older 283 The vivid and multi-national local colour of Hartlib’s circle, into which Dutch personalities were also involved - is described in an English publication: Petrőczi Eva 2008/V; Further reading: Mark Greengrass, Samuel Hartlib = Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/12500 (Megtekintés: 2014. február 14.) 284 About this possible visit: Eredics Péter 2008,74. 134
