Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1960-08-01 / 8. szám
10 FRATERNITY perintendents were to be free to make their visits to all parishes under their care. That is to saj, while the Edict did not give complete freedom for the exercise of religion in Hungary, it at least put an end to the worst of the civil disabilities under which Protestants had laboured. On the other hand, the Roman Catholic hierarchy was furious at the promulgation of the Edict. As can be imagined, wherever possible they obstructed the introduction of the clauses of the Edict, beginning by compelling the local authorities, where they could, not to publish the Edict at all. Thus in some places its verv existence was unknown for as lon<r as a year after its promulgation. After petitioning the king in vain to rescind the Edict, they persuaded the Pope to send an envoy to counsel the king. But instead of having the desired effect, this papal intervention only hardened the king in his determination to act with justice towards all his subjects, and 'he refused to be moved from his course of offering religious toleration to all Churches; and in later years he even intervened directly in cases where Protestants turned to him with complaints against the obstructive tactics of the local authorities. Moreover, bit by bit he granted still more freedom to the Protestant Churches; by 1785 the latter were given permission to sing hymns at a funeral service; next year they were given permission to build towers on church buildings once more, and to install bells therein; and then later they were allowed to build onto a main street which the Edict of Toleration had not permitted them. Thus it was, curiously enough, that by the will of an absolute monarch religious freedom was granted to the Habsburg Empire. (To be continued)
