PRIVILEGIILE ILIRICE ȘI STATUTUL JURIDIC AL BISERICII ORTODOXE DIN UNGARIA DE SUD ȘI BANAT ÎN SECOLUL AL XVIII-LEA ÎN CONTEXTUL LEGISLAȚIEI CONFESIONALE MAGHIARE
Illyrian Privileges and Legal Status of the Orthodox Church in Southern Hungary and Banat in the 18th Century in the Context of Hungarian Confessional Legislation

Summary/Abstract: This article presents the legal situation of Eastern Orthodoxy in the Kingdom of Hungary in the 18th century. After the second siege of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburg armies launched an offensive, reaching as far as Adrianople (Edirne, present-day Turkey), during which time they negotiated with the hierarchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church organised as a Patriarchate with its seat in Ipek (Peć) in present-day Kosovo. The result was two imperial diplomas (6 April and 21 August 1690) which granted the Serbs on the Balkan Peninsula so-called “Illyrian privileges”, the most important of which were the right to freely exercise their religion and choose a „voivode” (viceroy), as well as certain tax exemptions. But the fate of the war took an unfortunate turn for the Habsburg armies. The Ottoman offensive forced not only a military retreat, but also the migration of large numbers of Serbs northwards into southern Hungary. The new immigrants were not welcomed by Hungary’s political leadership, but the Viennese court granted them further diplomas, reconfirming Illyrian privileges, but this time on Hungarian territory. After 1706 these privileges were somewhat curtailed. However, Orthodox believers continued to enjoy freedoms, and were in an incomparable position to Protestants in Hungary. It was not until 1791 that the Illyrian privileges were incorporated into Hungarian law.

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