In
the 17th Century
The
question behind the bloodbath unleashed by the Hapsburgs (especially
Leopold I) against the Lutherans and Reformed, was whether it was in
response to a political rebellion rather than the religious issue in
terms of the ongoing Counter Reformation in Hungary.
In the last thirty years of the 17th century, at the
time that England freed itself its Absolute Monarch through the
Puritan Revolution and became a model for other European nations, in
two other nations, Absolutism joined forces with the Counter
Reformation in France and Hungary in an all out attack and assault on
Protestantism. The
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France in 1685, which led to the
imprisonment and sending to the galleys of the Hugenot pastors, the
mass flight of Protestant refugees across the Rhine and into Holland,
the torture and massacre of those who refused to recant ordered by
Louis XIV, had all been preceded by the same methods by Leopold I in
Hungary from 1671-1681, who also happened to be his political
arch-enemy.
The “Decade of
Sorrows”, resulted in a much smaller number of Protestants in
Hungary, but a Protestantism steadfastly faithful, which had survived
and lived through this time of testing in the face of the dual thrust
of the Emperor and the Roman Church.
In the second half of the 17th century, Hungary was
divided into three parts. The
central region had been in the hands of the Turks since 1541, with
Buda as its capital. The
eastern region, Transylvania was a duchy ruled by a Hungarian Count
who was a “protectorate” of the Turks.
The remaining western region was under the lordship of the
Austrian line of the Hapsburgs, who also “ruled” the Holy Roman
Empire and who hoped to drive out the Turks and reclaim the
territories as a united Hungary under their control.
By the end of the 16th century the vast majority of
the population in all three regions had gone over to the Reformation,
in the western region they were primarily Lutheran and the eastern
region was mainly Reformed. Roman
Catholicism in the Hapsburg lands had become a minority.
The bishops placed their hopes in the Hapsburgs to support the
Counter Reformation and infiltrated the Royal Chambers and Offices of
the administration in Vienna. They
first targeted the Hungarian magnates (upper nobility) in the first
half of the 17th century and promised them a role in the
liberation of Hungary from the Turks and part of the spoils if they
“returned” to the Roman Church.
But the lesser nobles and gentry and the populations of the
towns clung to their Protestant faith and waited to be delivered from
the Hapsburgs and the Turks under the leadership of the Count of
Transylvania and establish a national state of their own as they had
known it in the Middle Ages.
The Hapsburgs were not content with the conversation of the
Hungarian aristocracy, they wanted to establish absolute rule over the
Magyars…eliminating the rights of the Landtag, freedom from taxes,
and control the nation economically and militarily.
This led to alliances between Roman Catholic magnates,
Protestant lesser nobles and even some Roman Catholic bishops who were
jealous to preserve their former rights.
Catholic magnates, who held the highest clerical and civil
offices, secretly pledged themselves to work for the downfall of the
Hapsburgs and won the support of the majority of the nobles and sought
assistance both from France and the Turks. The three secular magnates, all of whom were Roman Catholics,
Zrinyi, Frangepan and Nadasdy (Slovak) were put on trial in 1671.
The participants in the conspiracy from the lower nobility fled
to Transylvania and their lands and estates were confiscated.
The Viennese Court suspended all forms of “home rule” for
Hungary and placed the military in power, whose first measure was
raising taxes twenty fold, half of which was to be paid by the nobles
who had always been tax free throughout their history.
Besides the taxes, which could be looked upon as atonement, the
damages inflicted by the occupation forces of the Hapsburgs on the
oppressed civilian population drove the peasantry to utter despair and
they lived in constant fear…the first phase of the Counter
Reformation.
The Hungarian clerics, in an attempt to whitewash their own
complicity in the plot against the Hapsburgs and also to protect their
magnate converts, launched a campaign against the Protestant lesser
nobles and their “preachers” who they branded as the real culprits
and conspirators. By so
doing, the Hungarian Hierarchy also hoped for the military
intervention and support of the Hapsburgs to enforce the Counter
Reformation.
In 1671, Bishop Gyorgy Barsony declared in his pamphlet:
Veritas Toti Mundo Declarata”, that the guarantees for the
right of freedom of religion for the Protestants was only an excuse
and pretext that was null and void, because they were never recognized
by the catholic clergy and appealed to His Imperial Royal Majesty to
re-instate the autocracy of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary.
Without even waiting for an Imperial decree, the Roman clergy
enlisted the occupation army to take over Protestant schools and
churches and drive out Protestant preachers, teachers and students and
force the conversion of the local populations.
The tax collectors and church confiscations were met with
resistance on the part of the beleaguered people, and Bishop Barsony
himself, as well as some priests and monks were victims of their own
oppression. An open war
of religion broke out. The
Imperial Army responded with massacres too numerous to mention,
because the people had taken things into their own hands.
In the midst of all of the unrest breaking out everywhere, the
rebels who had fled to Transylvania organized themselves and began
their attack against the Hapsburgs in the summer of 1672.
Trusting in the support of the local population they succeeded
in occupying Hungary to its western frontier.
Their advance was closely tied to the reaction of the populace
against the Roman Catholic clergy.
Even when the Hapsburgs drove the rebels back into Transylvania
they had to give up the idea of a quick “liberation” of Hungary.
The state civil servants complained against the Roman Catholic
clergy and claimed the religious persecution of the people had led to
their refusal to pay taxes. The
prelates on the other hand reversed the argument, claiming the tax
issue had led to the people’s opposition to conversion.
The state officials suggested that the Protestants be given
permission to build churches, but the prelates were of the opinion
that taxes should be raised, especially those of the nobles.
The Papal Legate informed the Court in Vienna that the chair of
St. Peter was opposed to any protests for religious tolerance.
Leopold I agreed to the principle of the rightness of religious
persecution and gave the clerics a free hand to crush and uproot
Protestantism and rescinded some of the taxes that he had imposed in
the hope that later he would be ale to collect them when the nation
was converted to the true faith.
The Primate, Szelepcsenyi also made use of the fact that the
dismissed and exiled Protestant preachers had participated in the
uprising, that the populace had used force to regain their churches,
drove away Roman Catholic priests and killed many of them.
(No case however, has ever been proven of the last charge
except the Catholic Encyclopedia keeps on repeating it…note from
Henry). When he had the opportunity he lodged a general complaint
against all Protestant preachers on the basis of political rebellion
and high treason. As a
test case, he forced the appearance of three Lutheran bishops and
thirty-one pastors before a “special” Court, presided over by
Roman Catholic prelates and laymen at Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg)
on September 24, 1673. The
condemned could chose between death or exile in a foreign land.
All chose exile. As a result of this, the Primate summoned all Protestant
preachers and teachers in the Hapsburg domains in Hungary, as well as
in the Turkish controlled zone to his court on March 5, 1674.
Most of the preachers in the eastern region fled to
Transylvania and the Turkish held area. Only three hundred and thirty-six men were put on trial in
Pozsony. Only fifty-two
of them were Reformed, all the others were Lutherans.
They were accused of defaming the Roman Catholic Church,
raising invectives against the Emperor, opposition to state authority
and were active participants in the rebellion.
That the preachers had preached against “Papism” is
obviously true and they had led their congregations in opposing the
take over of their churches and schools.
Whether all or some of them participated in the rebellion is a
moot point, while the other who did not participate were sympathetic
to its aims. The illegal
nature of the trial was not on the basis of false charges, but those
in charge of the court acted as the judges. The accused were judged guilty before they came before the
court.
The judgments were handed down on April 5th for the
pastors and April 7th for the schoolmasters. All were condemned to death, and unless they converted or
agreed to sign a document “voluntarily” and be prepared to leave
the county. The Emperor
graciously modified the sentence, “that they be punished and
tortured for a specified time, so that they might come to themselves
and learn to know the true God, and to those who could not come to the
light be driven out of the land.”
The punishments that followed consisted of slave labor, hunger,
beatings, the rack, and whippings, which were always followed by
interrogations by Jesuits who gave them the opportunity to convert.
As a result two
hundred and thirty-six of them signed the declaration and went into
exile. Most went to the
Protestant areas of Germany. Of the remaining one hundred, seven managed to escape, while
forty-six Lutherans and forty-seven Reformed preachers refused to
comply. They were taken
to various prisons where the tortures continued.
They remained obstinate and were classified as criminals and
like prisoners of war, and the officials prepared to sell them as
galley slaves.
They were dragged off to Naples.
Some managed to escape along the way.
Only thirty would remain alive to be chained in the galleys in
Naples.
The persecution of the Protestant preachers and teachers in
Hungary aroused the foreign Protestants.
Protests were raised in the British House of Commons, and the
General Estates of the Netherlands.
Talk of intervention in Hungary was heard all over Protestant
Europe. The ambassadors
of Sweden, the German principalities, and especially the Dutch
ambassador Bruyninx lodged protests in Vienna.
An international movement began to raise funds to “buy” the
galley slaves led by Pastor Zaffius, a Protestant pastor in Venice and
a merchant in Naples.
On February 8, 1676 Leopold I gave permission for the galley
slaves to be bought free if they promised never to return to Hungary.
On February 11, 1676 the surviving twenty-six pastors were
freed. Seven imprisoned
in Buccari were also freed. The
persecution had created an international scandal but Hapsburg
absolutism was still not in effect.
As Imre Thokoly’s insurrection army marched into Hungary,
with the support of France and the Turks, the churches were returned
to the Lutherans and Reformed and pastors began to secretly return
from exile. By 1675 the
local authorities had to report to Vienna that in more and more
districts the Protestants were re-emerging as congregations and that
the people defended the pastors and supported them.
So ended the “Decade of Sorrows” in 1677, even though
conflicts between Catholics and Protestants would continue.
The legal end to the struggle took place in 1681 at the Landtag
in Sopron where religious freedom was guaranteed, even though they
were later to be put aside. The
tidal wave of the Counter Reformation was only slightly weakened.
After 1683 it would be expressed in new ways for another
century, until Joseph II’s Edict of Toleration in 1781.
The Lutherans would experience greater damage than the Reformed
that were under protection in the east by the rulers of Transylvania
in the years ahead. But
the goal of the eradicating the Lutherans could not be reached.
This was because of the witness of the “martyr-preachers”
and the strengthening of the faith of the congregations.
(Henry’s
note…Hungary at that time included Slovakia and western Hungary,
which was predominately ethnic German in terms of its population.)