The Role of János Körmöczi in Establishing the Unitarian Church Archives Cover Image

Körmöczi János szerepe az unitárius egyházi levéltár kialakításában
The Role of János Körmöczi in Establishing the Unitarian Church Archives

Author(s): Lehel Molnár B.
Subject(s): History
Published by: Erdélyi Unitárius Egyház
Keywords: archives, Enlightenment, Unitarian Church, János Körmöczi, travels

Summary/Abstract: János Körmöczi (1763–1836) is an unjustly neglected fi gure in the history of our Unitarian culture and church. This is especially striking, because during his western travels he became thoroughly acquainted with the ideas of the great French and German Enlightenment thinkers, and back home he proved to be an extremely productive scholar using these ideas. In addition to teaching and organizing church life, he attributed great importance to the establishment of the church archives. At the end of the 18th century it became necessary for the Unitarian Church to implement both administrative reform as well as an inventory of assets. This could only be achieved by ensuring that the foundational letters, various reports, fi nancial statements and other documents of historical value were counted, collected and placed in the archives of the Consistory. This was especially important because the congregations were not taking suffi cient care of their written heritage. The driving force for this work was János Körmöczi who played a leading role in establishing the church archives in the new school building in Kolozsvár, constructed in 1806. Even today we use Körmöczi’s two-volume catalogue (“Regesztrum”) to navigate among the oldest documents of our church archives.

  • Issue Year: 120/2014
  • Issue No: 3-4
  • Page Range: 221-251
  • Page Count: 31
  • Language: Hungarian