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

1959-12-01 / 12. szám

FRATERNITY

13

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)

Thus the Protestants now waited and wondered what further regulation could possibly be enforced to render their position even more intolerable throughout the now completely reunited Kingdom of Hungary.

The Effects of the War of Liberation

The great majority of the inhabitants of the area vacated by the Turks, as we have seen, was of the Reformed faith. One unfortunate result of the war was that this area now met the full force of the Counter-Reformation. Germanspeaking soldiers from the Kingdom were planted on the people and ordered to threaten them with every kind of punishment if they did not convert to Rome. The result was that thousands fled from their homes into the woods or away to the cities.

So bitter were the Hungarian plainsmen at the treatment meted out to them that in 1703 there broke out the so-called “kuruc” (pronounced kooroots) war of Francis Rakoczy II. Transylvania joined in it at once, with the result that the newly evacuated area accepted him as Prince