The Eighth Tribe, 1974 (1. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)

1974-09-01 / 4. szám

September, 1974

THE EIGHTH TRIBE

Page Five

This presentation was delivered on the 27th annual conference of the American Hungarian Reformed Presbyters’ Association. Ligonier, Pa., Sept. 2, 1973.

GABOR BETHLEN—CHAMPION OF HUNGARIAN CALVINISM

According to a history of Hungarian literature (Szerb Antal: Magyar Irodalomtörténet), western legends of the pre-Reformation era told many stories about the land of Bishop John, situated far away in Eastern Europe. According to these legends envoys were sent to Bishop John asking him for help whenever Christianity was threatened. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Transylvania, that southeastern quarter of Hungary, that had been almost completely severed from the rest of the country by the Turkish invasion of a few decades ago — became the realm of Bishop John in the eyes of the western protestants. They were watching the uprisings of Gabor Bethlen breathlessly. The gazettes, the forerunners of our daily newspapers, were bringing battlefield communiques even in remote England. Gabriel Bethlen the “Magyar King”, the “Reigning prince of Transylvania”, was an unfathomable power and an intriguing personality in the eyes of the West. In a widely read novel, titled “Argenis” and written in Latin by John Barklay of England, the leading character was named “Gabor Bethlen Perianhelus”, “perianhelus” having meant the one from across the forest, that is, a Transylvanian. His name was joyfully mentioned in German folksongs of the period, and in German schoolbooks of geography, the term “Gabor” came to be the simplified name for the principality of Transylvania.

So much for what the Protestant West knew and thought of Bethlen in his day. What do we Hungarian Americans know about him today? Personally before undertaking this project at the request of our Association’s president, Joseph Tegze, I thought I knew the most significant facts about Bethlen. I knew what was generally known, that while it was Bocskay who compelled the Catholic Ilabsburgs of Austria to grant religious freedom to the Calvinists in Hungary, it was Bethlen who made that treaty stick, and it was he that subsequently built the foundation of the Hungarian Reformed Church. I knew that he was a devout Calvinist, who, like his counterparts in the western countries, read the Bible X number of times from beginning to end. I knew that he was a dauntless soldier as well, who led his army into battles singing King David’s Psalms. But knowing just a few choice facts like these about a historical person makes him appear rigid, unreal and irrelevant for today. Having looked him up however in the Encyclopedia Britan-Gabor Bethlen

nica and in Hungarian history books, and having read and reread a controversial historical study of him from Gyula Szekfű (Szekfű Gyula: Bethlen Gabor, — Budapest, 1929) I realize, that there is much more to him than the simplified and glorified picture, that had been in my mind. Not that he is irrelevant for us today, but he is a most illustrious example of how to hold on to our religious and moral values in a fast-changing world. Bethlen’s world was much worse than ours is today. — The Mohammedan Turks had penetrated to the very heart of Europe; Reformation having happened, Catholic and Protestant were warring with each other; and, much as today, there were some strange alliances, such as Luther's very own people of Saxons fighting on the side of the Catholics against the Calvinists, and Bethlen’s army being augmented by Turkish troops against the Catholic Habsburgs. — Yet Bethlen had given us a relevant example of how much can be accomplished for faith and church by persistence coupled with flexible methods, by dignity coupled with diplomacy and by courage founded not on faith and hope alone, but also on thoroughness of preparation.

About the first thing that impressed me about Bethlen, was that as an exponent of Calvinism, in an age of intolerance, he stood for tolerance — though not at the expense of diluting his own faith or short selling it in the slightest. Thus, when in the beginning of his first campaign against the Habsburgs he seizes the Northern Hungarian city of Kassa and tho good Calvinists there want him to drive all the Jesuits from the city, he disappoints them: the Jesuits can stay, but effective steps are taken to keep them from