Reformation in the Kingdom of Hungary
Most faithful believed that prayers for the dead, indulgence grants from church authorities and works of mercy could shorten the afterlife sufferings of sinful people's souls.
[18] A Catholic priest's illegitimate son, Heinrich Bullinger, developed an interim formula to conciliate Luther's and Zwingli's views on Eucharist, describing it as a mark of the covenant between God and humankind.
Most German states and Scandinavia remained loyal to Luther's teachings, but English, French and Dutch translations of Calvin's works spread his ideas in Scotland, France and the Netherlands.
[27] Radical reformers' acts alarmed many people and the newly raised nostalgia for traditional church values gave an impetus to Catholic renewal, culminating in the Counter-Reformation.
[46] Jan Hus's theology spread in the villages and market towns of Szerém County (now in Serbia) and Hussite preachers completed the Bible's first Hungarian translation.
[76] Papist sect, you wretched people!Look into yourselves and cast off your sins!The fields are now green, the flowers are blooming,And words full of meaning pour into the world.The country's Hungarian- or Slavic-speaking population had no direct access to reformist literature for years.
[85] Both Luther's denial of priestly privileges and Zwingli's picture of the reform movement as a force transforming church and society alike endorsed lay participation.
Dévai Bíró came under the influence of Luther and Melanchthon around 1530, but his deep loathing of the Mass made him an ardent opponent of the doctrine of transubstantiation, for which conservative Protestants regarded him as a "Sacramentarian".
[104] The Saxons of Bistritz (Bistrița, Romania) destroyed the "idols" in their churches in late 1542, because they interpreted a Moldavian attack against the town as the sign of the wrath of God for their idolatry.
George Martinuzzi wanted to bring the Saxon priests before court on charges of heresy, but moderate politicians convinced him and the Queen to hold a religious debate at the Diet in Gyulafehérvár in June 1543.
He argued that many actually unimportant elements of Catholic church life were alien to Orthodox travellers visiting Kronstad, a flourishing commercial center on the Hungarian–Wallachian border, and their frequent demands for an explanation raised doubts about fundamental Christian doctrines in uneducated people.
In April 1544, religious issues were re-considered at the Diet at Torda (Turda, Romania) and the co-existence of the Catholic and Evangelical denominations was tacitly recognised: a decree warned travellers to respect the devotional customs of the town or village where they were staying.
[119] The wealthy Fuggers' representative in Hungary, Hans Dernschwam, noted in 1554 that the poor Hungarians living in Buda "had no comfort other than the Word of God, which the Lutherans preach more openly than the Papists.
In 1551, Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), a free royal borough with a mixed Saxon and Hungarian population, met with no official opposition when the town council introduced the Evangelical version of Reformation.
The town pastor, Gáspár Heltai, although himself a Saxon, published a series of religious books in Hungarian, including his own Dialogue—a collection of novels and parables, illustrating Luther's moral theology.
In line with Bullinger's views, he regarded the sacramental bread and wine as pure signs and symbols, for which the town council accused him of heresy and the Evangelical pastors' regional synod excommunicated him in Körösladány.
[136] In November, Hungarian pastors from Upper Hungary, Partium and Transylvania assembled at a joint synod in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș, Romania) and adopted Melius's creed.
[139] The German townspeople remained hostile towards Calvinism and seven Upper Hungarian mining towns adopted a common Lutheran confession of faith, the Confessio Heptapolitana.
[50][142] Historian Mihály Balázs proposes that John Sigismund wanted to identify his realm as "a haven for reform in sharp distinction from his Catholic Habsburg rivals".
[143] After a series of debates between the Saxon Evangelical and the predominantly Hungarian Reformed pastors, he persuaded both parties to summarize their views in two separate documents and sent both summaries to German Protestant theologians for a review in 1562.
[144] Although two Calvinist leaders, Dávid and Heltai, were of Saxon origin, primarily ethnic Hungarians (including the majority of the Székelys)[145] chose to adhere to the Reformed Church.
Although landowners were forbidden to instal a priest in the churches under their patronage without the local community's consent, but the Hungarian, Saxon and Székely leaders strongly influenced the serfs' religious life in the lands under their rule.
In response, John Sigismund assured the Reformed pastors that he would never persecute them for their religious views, but he emphatically underlined that he would never allow Melius to expel antitrinitarian preachers from the Partium.
And that Péter Melius has been informed by our proclamation that he should not play the pope in our realm, persecuting clergy because of the true religion, nor burn books, nor force his belief on anyone, than it is for the following reason: We wish that in our country—and so it says in decree of the Diet—freedom shall reign.
[168] The Edict of Torda, as historian Graeme Murdoch, concludes was "the product of the relative weakness of central political authority ... and intended to balance the interests the three nations represented in the diet.
He went so far that he tried to persuade the Evangelical pastors to condemnate their Reformed and Unitarian peers for heresy in clear contradiction to laws prohibiting attacks on priests on theological grounds.
After a Unitarian synod accepted the document in early 1580, Hunyadi dismissed all pastors who rejected Christ's adoration, but radical noblemen continued to employ non-adorationist priests.
[185] One of the radical aristocrats, János Gerendi, gave shelter to the poet Miklós Bogáthi Fazekas who proposed the restoration of the dietary laws of the Old Testament and regarded the Sabbath as the holy day of rest.
The Diet established the jurisdiction of county courts to make judgement in disputes over tithes, authorized the Evangelical and Reformed senior clergy to pursue parish visitations and the titular bishops lost their seats in the Upper House.
He made references to Basil of Caesarea, Epiphanius of Salamis and other Church Fathers highly esteemed by the Orthodox community, but he proposed them not to hail Mary the Virgin as "God-bearer",[204] but call her "Son-bearer".
