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

1959-08-01 / 8. szám

FRATERNITY

3

HISTORY

OF THE

HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH

By

IMRE REVESZ, Th. D.

Translated by

GEORGE A. F. KNIGHT II

THE VICTORY OF THE COUNTERREFORMATION

1608—1715

(Continuation)

Peter Pázmány and His Activities

Once Matyas had been crowned he took little trouble to implement and uphold the Peace of Vienna, but rather, with the connivance of the hierarchy, he did everything he could to render it null and void. For example, we discover that Archbishop Forgács is in the position of being able to protest to the King against the findings of the 1610 Lutheran Synod. Rut it was Peter Pázmány who was the real moving spirit of the Counter-Reformation. He was a Jesuit monk who became Archbishop of Esztergom in succession to Forgács in the year 1616.

Peter Pázmány is one of the oustanding personalities of Hungary during the first half of the 17th century. He had been born into a Reformed family, but had become a devoted servant of Rome, and fought against his former co-believers with every means in his power—by word, by his pen, by diplomacy and by persuasion. He had full freedom for his activities under Matthias II, and neither the law nor the reigning monarch sought to restrain his zeal. Under Fer-