Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1960-05-01 / 5. szám

FRATERNITY

11

Catholic priests were to be allowed to officiate in the case of mixed marriages.

All conversions from Romanism to Protestantism were now completely forbidden. Protestants could support only the “lower grade” of schools, and all high schools were henceforth to close down. Protestants were to celebrate all Roman Catholic festivals.

The right of the noble over the souls of his peasants was now reaffirmed in entirety. Anyone who interfered with the religious convictions of a noble’s peasants was to be reported to the king.

Offices of state could be filled by Catholics only. Protestant nobles might erect “houses of prayer” in non-articulated places, but for the use of their own families alone; no strangers or Protestant ministers were to be permitted to enter them.

The findings ended with the order that from now on both parties were to forget their grievances. Anyone who still had a complaint was to present it to the king, not as from the community in question, but as a mere individual who has a complaint to make.

Of course, one can see the hand of Rome behind all these royal orders. It is doubtful whether the king would have been so severe on his subjects of the Protestant faith if he had not had the advisers he had at his court.

On reading the text of the order, the leaders of the two Protestant Churches made an immediate protest, sending two representatives to the royal court in Vienna to present their petition in person. Charles III received them. Moreover, the speech they used to the king has been preserved. It is full of self-abasement and of cringing, fawning language. The Counter-Reformation had done its work well, it seems, not only in the material sphere, but also in the spiritual. The independent spirit of the Reformed plainsman of Hungary Was something that by now was very nearlv lost.