Fraternity-Testvériség, 1959 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1959-04-01 / 4. szám

FRATERNITY

7

HISTORY

OF THE

HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH

By

IMRE REVESZ, Th. D.

Translated by

GEORGE A. F. KNIGHT I

THE CENTURY OF THE REFORMATION 1520—1608

(Continuation)

The Jesuits made their first appearance in Transylvania in 1579. It was Stephen Báthory who invited them in and who encouraged them to build a high school and a theological seminary. But in 1588 parliament drove them out of the country on the ground that they were a pernicious influence in the land. Prince Sigismund Báthory, however, secretly reintroduced them, only having to submit in 1602 to seeing them being expelled once again. Nicholas Olah invited them to Hungary as early as 1561, but as he had made little provision for their sustenance, their activities ceased in 1567. But two decades later, they returned to western Hungary, and in 1587 King Rudolf induced parliament against its expressed will to grant a rich estate to the Jesuits. In such an act we are given an instance of the kind of manner in which the Habsburgs overrode the wishes of their people as, throughout the succeeding centuries, they aided the Counter-Reformation with all the strength and power that a king could wield.

In 1597 the bishop of Eger, fleeing before the Turks, set up his seat in the Protestant city of Kassa (Kosice). Not being satisfied with the little church at his disposal he cast longing