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

provost of Győr (Gran) - provocative „booklet on the high mass.”303

We quote here an extraordinarily witty passage on the comic features of the Catholic cult (almost idolatry) of relics: “Once upon a time a monk was showing such a quantity of the milk of the Holy Virgin’s breast that it could have been enough for ten female creatures. (The anecdote was taken form Erasmus of Rotterdam!) Again him (Erasmus): The pieces of wood taken from Christ’s cross are shown at so many places that this material could easily fill a maritime ship.”304 The item No. 27,32,40, a garland of the enumeration of the Catholic eccentricities is even more peculiar: “The handkerchief of Christ can be found in Nicea, in Trajectum (the Latin-Hungarian name of Utrecht!), in Lotharingia and in Rome... The index-finger of St.John of the Cross with which he pointed at Christ... the third one can be found in Lugdunum (Leiden). 40. The body of Longinus (who was kicking Christ with his lance) can be found in Mantua and in Lugdunum (Leiden).”305 On the one hand, István Czeglédi tries to collect the most comic “popish” elements and rituals, on the other hand, he tries form time to time “to netherlandise” his text; in the case of this book not with geographical elements, but with mentioning very often the names of Dutch towns - first of all Leiden — which played an important role in his education. Though living a very hectic and disturbed life, István Czeglédi is one of the most fertile authors of Hungarian Protestant literature. The almost two decades he spent at Kassa (Kaschau, Kosice) is considered to be the golden age of the Calvinist community of the town. That’s why he became the main ecclesiastical hero of a book entitled The Calvinist Chronicle of Kassa 1644—1944).306 The appreciation and the gratitude of the Calvinists of Kassa towards the Netherlands was maintained by him and from 1669 strengthened by a younger second priest of the community. He was Gellért Kábái Bodor, a former student of Groningen, Leiden, Utrecht and Franeker.

Returning once more to our main hero, let us quote the words of his friend and fellow student during the period of his peregrination, Mátyás Nógrádi, who was a remarkable theologian, but, not much of a poet. Therefore his words of applied poetry are interpreted here in prose:

303 Czeglédi István 1670.

304 Ibid., 29.

305 Ibid., 30.

306 Szabó Lajos 1944.

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