Liszka József (szerk.): Az Etnológiai Központ Évkönyve 2008-2009 - Acta Ethnologica Danubiana 10-11. (Dunaszerdahely-Komárno, 2009)
Tanulmányok - Bárth Dániel: A nyugati és a keleti kereszténység határá. Vallási együttélés és konfliktusok a dél-magyarországi Bácskában a 18. században (Összefoglalás)
might have emerged either at different times or simultaneously. This latter case was only probable since adoration took place usually without priests (Beszédes 2000). Besides the above-mentioned examples of the exchanges of sacred texts and sacred places we may also find historical data about the exchange of sacred people and the mutual employment of their services. The town of Zombor (Sombor), that was one of the centres of our region, was the scene of a set of exorcising actions that took place between 1766 and 1769, and which were concentrated around the activity of a Franciscan friar (Bárth 2005; Bárth 2008). The population of Zombor in the 18"’ century was various and mixed to a great degree both in terms of religion and ethnicity. Roman Catholic and Orthodox religion were represented approximately by the same proportion (50-50 %). The majority of Roman Catholics were South Slavs; a lesser part was made up of Germans and Hungarians. The number of Hungarians increased gradually owing to in-migration and the continuous assimilation of the Roman Catholic South Slavic people. In this tendency of assimilation it was the religious and not the linguistic aspect that played a considerable role. In 1767 about 2200 Roman Catholic South Slavic and 200 Roman Catholic Germans lived in the town. The Catholic parishes were led by the Franciscan order. The significance of the similar-sized community of Serbs is indicated by the fact that they had twelve popes and two churches in the town (Muhi 1944; Bárth 2005, 273-275). In 1766 a Croatian Franciscan friar, Rochus Szmendrovich, arrived in town. The way he tended the flock as well as his preaching and healing activity soon made him the most popular priest in the town. About this Franciscan friar’s exorcising activity, which he performed for two years, quite a considerable number of documents have been preserved in the archives of the Kalocsa diocese. The supervising ecclesiastical authorities found the exorcizing activities disquieting out of various considerations, and after two years they made the friar leave the town. From our point of view it is the exorcism perfonned on Orthodox people that is of outstanding importance. The friar began exorcism at the end of 1766, which action was soon wellknown both in the town and its vicinity. Among the people that came together on this occasion several Orthodox Serbs appeared too. The presence of dissidents in a Roman Catholic church and their participation in the Roman Catholic liturgy made way to anxiety, and the friar was soon reported the ecclesiastical authorities. Rochus friar treated altogether nineteen Orthodox people who were considered as possessed by the devil. Half of these people lived in the town of Zombor; while the other ones arrived from the neighbouring Serbian villages to town. We should remark here that all of these nineteen people were women. In course of the legal proceeding Rochus argued in his defence that after the news about his first exorcism had spread around, more and more dissidents, suffering from various diseases, paid a visit to him, and that he examined about thirty out of them and diagnosed in the case of these above mentioned nineteen women the signs of real devilish obsession. In vain did he tell these people to go and see their popes and monks; they replied that they had already made attempts but these failed. Later, several people from among those who had been delivered from evil or, rather from devil as well as some spectators converted to Roman Catholicism. The members of the town’s municipal council who, in course of these two years of exorcist activity perpetually assisted popular Rochus, referred to this conversion of Orthodox people as a defensive argument. The conversion-driving force of the Franciscan friar was utilised not only in course of exorcisms. In the história domus of the 57
