Apácák a politikai rendőrség célkeresztjében, avagy mennyit ér egy lehallgatókészülék?
Nuns in the Crosshairs of the Political Police, or What’s a Wiretap Worth?

Summary/Abstract: Once the communist party seized power in Hungary after the Second World War, their foremost aim was to disrupt and denigrate the operation of Churches and religious life in general. In the summer of 1950, over two thousand nunsand monks were forced to leave their church on account of ‘public safety and security’ concerns. Although, on 30 August 1950, the Hungarian Catholic Church and the Hungarian state did sign an agreement which formally settled their relationship, Decree Law no. 34, issued on 7 September in the same year, suspended the operating license of all but four religious orders in the country. In this way, the Society of the Heart of Jesus, Daughters of the People, an order founded by Ferenc Bíró in 1921, was also dissolved. Since the sisters were forced to continue their religious service in secret, they were actively trying to conceal their operation from the prying eyes of state security. The nuns were risking their lives to keep their vows and maintain their regula. In 1967, the military police’s counter-intelligence unit designated to deal with religious affairs launched an investigation against the sisters of the Society of the Heart of Jesus, under the code name Összetartók (The Faithful). Using their methods of subterfuge, state security attempted to monitor their everyday activities and disrupt their communications in order to force them to relinquish their illegal operation as an order. The investigation files provide an insight into how the sisters lived at the time, how they managed to organize retreats and recruitment, and what possibilities opened for them after the government’s agreement with the Vatican in the Kádár Era.

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