Péter Pázmány și problemele elitei catolice din Transilvania în prima jumătate a secolului al XVII-lea
Péter Pázmány and the Problems of the Transylvanian Catholic Elite in the First Half of the 17th Century

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the difficulties faced by the Catholics in the principality of Transylvania after the failure of the Habsburg takeover in the early 17th century. The author investigates the perspective of the Catholic archbishop of Esztergom, Péter Pázmány, whose authority extended also over the Catholic Church in Transylvania, and that of the noblemen who had been educated as Catholics during the last decades of the 16th century, in the context of the pro- Catholic policies of the princes from the Báthory family. She also analyzes the policies of the main princes of the first half of the 17th century, Gabriel Bethlen (1613-1629) and George Rákóczi I (1630-1648), as well as the structural constraints originating from the anti-Catholic stance of the estates of Transylvania, from the suspicion that Catholics might serve the Habsburgs, and from the limited number of available Catholic clergymen. The paper highlights the shift which occurred in the 1630s, when the prince favored the Franciscans coming from the Ottoman-occupied territories in Hungary and Bosnia over the Jesuits who were too closely working together with the Catholic clergy located in Habsburg-ruled Upper Hungary.

• Details
• Contents