Az 1674. évi pozsonyi prédikátorper történetéhez. Protestáns lelkipásztorok harca az erőszakos ellenreformációval szemben
On the History of the 1674 Pozsony Preacher Trial. Protestant Pastors Resisting the Violent Counter-Reformation

Summary/Abstract: In March 1674, during a show trial in Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg) that attracted attention across Europe, more than seven hundred Hungarian Lutheran and Calvinist pastors stood collectively accused of rebellion. Those pastors who obeyed the trial summons were condemned to incarceration, galley slavery, or exile. Their tragic story – particularly the fate of those sold as galley slaves – has received considerable attention from Hungarian scholars. By contrast, the many pastors who did not obey the summons to Pozsony have remained virtually unknown The author departs from the traditional focus on literary sources such as memoirs, sermons, and treatises of the well-known galley slaves. Writings by pastors tried in absentia have not readily survived and information about their lives must be gleaned from documentary evidence. Drawing on inquisitorial records, official reports, and letters surviving in the Eger Cathedral Chapter and Zips Chamber archives, the author reconstructs the involvement of pastors in the town of Kisszeben (Zeben, today Sabinov, Slovakia) and its hinterlands in resisting the violent imposition of the Catholic faith. He places these pastors at the center of a popular revolt that succeeded in restoring the Lutheran faith in late 1672 The author argues further that the story of the Kisszeben pastors was not unique. He demonstrates that pastors from other parts of Sáros County and Upper Hungary – both Lutheran and Calvinist – similarly fought for the restoration of their faith. Thus, the blanket accusation of rebellion – the leitmotif of the Pozsony Trial – was not entirely a fabrication of Habsburg propaganda as other historians have suggested. The muchpublicized fate of the galley slaves and other prominent victims of the Pozsony Trial has obscured the fact that the trial itself was a dramatic failure. Rather than securing the ascendancy of the Catholic faith in Hungary, it consolidated and promoted a vigorous subculture of religious resistance. Similar to recalcitrant clerics in the Netherlands, France, Bohemia, Ukraine, and Russia, the Protestant pastors discussed here contributed decisively to the survival of their faith, an important historical reality that remains unacknowledged in the historical record.

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