Dénes Dienes: History of the Reformed Church Collég in Sárospatak (Sárospatak, 2013)
FLOURISHING AND SCATTERING THE REFORMED COLLEGE IN THE 17TH CENTURY - The school is forced to leave Sárospatak
THE REFORMED CHURCH COLLEGE IN THE 17TH CENTURY 48 which can have very harmful consequences. Fellow peers, learn from the example of the king of England”. Throughout the 17th century, the students of Patak jealously guarded their privileges. They came increasingly under the influence of the same process which had gone to completion in the lives of those theology students who had already left the school and acquired privileges due to their studies. In the second half of the century, they viewed themselves in a similar vein, as an order with special privileges. The right of managing pubs was one of the economic foundations of this community, one which provided an opportunity for social advancement. Therefore, the students deemed its protection to be vital and, at any time when this right was endangered, the students consistently closed ranks accordingly. THE SCHOOL IS FORCED TO LEAVE SÁROSPATAK Ferenc Rákóczi I did not support the College Zsuzsanna Lorántffy died on 8 April 1660; her son, György Rákóczi II died a few months later, on 7 July. His widow, Zsófia Báthory and their son, Ferenc Rákóczi I, moved to Sárospatak and soon converted to Catholicism. The first Roman Catholic and Reformed faith disputation took place in Sárospatak in the fall of 1660 (30 September - 1 October), by which time there were clear signs that the noble family had renounced its Reformed faith. The following year, they withdrew their support from the pastors in Patak and from the College, and in 1663 they invited Jesuits to settle down in Sárospatak. A year later, Mihály Buzinkai was forced to move out of his house because Zsófia Báthory - on the basis of her privilege as a landlord - had purchased his house at market value and donated it to the Jesuits. These decisions were rather irksome and troublingly unpleasant but they did not affect the Reformed Church or the College’s institutional structure much at the time, although the Jesuits began a very active missionary campaign in the city with the support of the lord and lady of the land. The teachers of the College became immersed in intense and abrasive theological disputations with the Jesuits, something which was quite common in that era. Pósaházi published - either anonymously or under a pseudonym - his disputation papers one after the other without refraining from including insult. The teachers tried to countercheck the Jesuits’ successful open-air plays which the Jesuits used as a means for converting people. However, as far as it is possible to discern, the Reformed Church students put on only one play with religious elements in 1666. At the end of the century, it seemed that a favourable turn came in the relationship between the lord of the land and the College. Ferenc Rákóczi I signed an agreement with the Protestant nobles living in the Upper-Hungarian region in order to broaden the movement against the emperor in 1669. In it he promised to return the funds that were taken from the Reformed believers; he even promised to pay compensation. Despite these encouraging developments, weaknesses appeared within the College itself; the discipline in the school was breaking down. There were students who often spent the night outside the school compound or took in strangers and partied with them; they would sing “love songs”, shout, curse and maintain friendships with suspicious strangers. There was no longer any unity in the leadership; the pastors working in Patak were not on good terms with each other nor
