“Calvin’s Truth” And “Hungarian Religion”

Remembering A Reformer

 

Botond Gaál

 

Introduction

“Hungary is really Calvinist. More Calvinist than one would imagine. But not in the common sense of the word,” said Emile Doumergue, the French scholar, on the occasion of the Calvin jubilee in 1909. Reformed Hungarians, celebrating this jubilee with an almost unsurpassed enthusiasm, would have agreed with the first part of this judgment. Not only had “Calvin’s truth,” in the popular imagination, become “Hungarian religion,” as the poet Baja Mihály phrased it; the nation itself was seen by many as indebted to Calvin’s Reformation (“Do you believe there would be a Hungarian nation, if there had been no Calvin?” “I do not.”)

But in which sense exactly these early twentieth-century Reformed Hungarians understood themselves, or their country, as Calvinist, is a question that cannot be answered straightforwardly. This is partly because Calvin’s appropriation among Hungarians has not yet been the subject of proper historical research. Mihály Bihary, a Hungarian theologian living in the Czech Republic, facilitated such research with his Bibliographia Calviniana – a major work that lists all Calvin editions published in Hungarian (and other languages) between 1850 and 1997. But an inventory of secondary sources – commentaries, critical studies, pamphlets, poems, biographies, and so forth – does not yet exist. And although commemorative volumes such as Imre Révész’s Kálvin élete és a Kalvinizmus (Calvin’s Life and Calvinism, 1864) are occasionally mentioned as indicators of Hungarian interest in the Genevan reformer, historical studies on the  reasons for this interest have still to be written.

This is a regrettable lacuna, especially from the perspective that underpins the current volume. Precisely because, in Doumergue’s phrasing, Hungary was considered “more Calvinist than one would imagine,” any investigation of Calvin’s role in modern religious memory would be incomplete without paying attention to the Hungarian Reformed Church and its institutions, to the role of Calvin in Hungarian education and to the lectures, pamphlets, statues and festivals that marked the centenaries of the Institutes and of Calvin’s death. At the same time, it is unsurprising that such studies have not yet been undertaken. The “paradigm” of lieux de mémoire studies, which so clearly stimulates research in this direction, has hardly, if at all, been established within Hungarian historiography. A study of Calvin’s place in the “collective memories” of Reformed Hungarians would therefore not only require extensive factual research – when, where and by whom was Calvin remembered? – but also an analytical framework that as yet does not exist in mainstream Hungarian historiography.

This chapter takes a first step in that direction. It answers some of the most urgent “who, where, and when” questions by investigating what was said and published about Calvin in commemorative years such as 1864, 1909 and 1936, during which modern Hungarian novelists and poets made Calvin’s legacy the subject of their writings, how Debrecen came to be called the “Calvinist Rome” and what roles the memory of Calvin played in the Hungarian rhetoric of the 1848-9 independence war. This admittedly rather factual survey aims to pave the way for a more content-oriented analysis that future historians will hopefully undertake. Despite its limited scope, this chapter will nonetheless abundantly illustrate that Calvin enjoyed a privileged position in the collective memory of Reformed Hungarians during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Paraphrasing Doumergue, it will suggest that this Hungarian memory was, perhaps, “more Calvinist than one would imagine.”

 

The Reformed Church as the Hungarian Church

In the years following the start of the Reformation in Germany, numerous young Hungarian students studied in Wittenberg, where they attended lectures by both Luther and Melanchthon. They also went to Heidelberg and got to know the Swiss Reformation. Back home, they first spread the Lutheran Reformation; then, from the 1550s onward, an increasing number of students became followers of the Helvetic Reformation. The effect of Bullinger, Bucer, Beza, and Calvin was considerable. At the 1567 council held in Debrecen, the Hungarian Reformed Church came into existence, but only on a confessional basis. The participants signed their acceptance of the Second Helvetic Confession. By this time the followers of the Helvetic Reformation were a far greater majority of the total Hungarian population, and later became identified as Calvinists.

From a political point of view, this era was chaotic. In 1541, Hungary was divided into three parts. The Turks occupied most of the middle part, while the northern and western areas ended up under the authority of the Austrian emperor and Transylvania remained an independent Hungarian state. The Hungarian population belonged almost entirely to the Reformed Churches in the last decade of the sixteenth century. The Lutheran Reformation spread mainly among the northern, German speaking population, while the Calvinists took a foothold all over the country, but mainly on the Great Plain and in Transylvania. In the seventeenth century, the Hungarian Counter-Reformation was so cruel and bloody that Protestant-Catholic relations in Hungary up until today are affected by the memory of it.

Because of its use of the Hungarian language and its closeness to rural society, the Calvinist Church, in contrast to the internationally-organized Roman Catholic Church, was considered to be the national Hungarian church. Therefore the well-being of the church was deeply connected with the political freedoms or restrictions imposed on the Hungarian nation. This was the situation when the Enlightenment and the Reform Era reached the Hungarians. Data taken from one of the minutes of the Council of State effectively depicts the religious situation at the end of the eighteenth century. A member of the Council, called Izdenczy, made the following statement: “The Calvinists are all Hungarians. If I ask a Calvinist peasant what his religion is, he answers: I am Hungarian by faith. The reign of the Hungarian language will mean the reign of Calvinism.”

Precisely due to its national character, Catholics feared the influence of the Reformed Church on the Hungarians. The fear of Calvinists was still very much alive in 1840 when in the assembly of the Council of State, a Czech man, called Kollowrat, argued against the introduction of the Hungarian language at schools: “The enforcement of the Hungarian language is in the interest of the Reformed, because the Calvinists do not have to struggle with the Hungarian language as the Catholic Germans and Slovaks, so they will know more, they will study better and they will inundate the offices of administration. Even the Catholic seminarians will absorb Reformed spirituality at the Hungarian speaking schools.”

 

Debrecen as the Calvinist Rome

In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the city of Debrecen with its famous Reformed College counted as one of the strongest intellectual citadels of the country. The Calvinist citizens, the craftsmen, the merchants, and the farmers maintained the school, but they were the most diligent readers of the Debrecen print shop as well. The city did not reflect the freshness of the European Enlightenment: its citizens were rather cautious about these new ideas, and they advocated a sort of healthy conservatism. However, the College included such important intellectuals among its faculty that the school equaled many universities. A famous student of this College, the poet, writer and neologist Ferenc Kazinczy, disliked this conservatism of Debrecen so much that he mockingly called the city the Calvinist Rome.

In doing so, he continued a tradition whose roots are to be found in the mid-sixteenth century.  At that point in time the Debrecen Reformed theologians such as Péter Méliusz Juhász fought a hard battle against the Antitrinitarians who were widespread in Transylvania. An important leader of these Antitrinitarians was Ferenc Dávid, who mockingly named Debrecen the Calvinist Rome and Péter Méliusz Juhász Pope Peter. This is why, in the nineteenth century, the Hungarian reformer Méliusz, could be respectfully known as the Hungarian Calvin.

The inhabitants of Debrecen could hardly bear the nickname attributed to their city, because they saw their ascetic Biblical pietism compared to Rome, that is, to luxurious ecclesiastical splendor. For them, the diligent study of the Scriptures and the application of its teachings in everyday life were key. Their orthodoxy and devotion to family and nation was, among other things, expressed in contributions for the famous College, which became the greatest intellectual center for Hungarian Calvinist youth. Its radiating effect was felt in the whole country.

These reservations regarding the Calvinist Rome expression were not recognized by most Hungarian intellectuals, writers and poets. In the last decades of the nineteenth century another famous Hungarian poet studied in Debrecen as a student of the College, Endre Ady (1877-1919), who on the one hand valued the spirituality of the city, but on the other hand considered it sleepy. According to the tradition, he also annoyed the people of Debrecen by calling their city the Calvinist Rome.

In the times of the Communist dictatorship it was not expedient to talk about the Calvinist Rome. But after the 1989 change, this label was used once again – though no longer as a mocking name, but as a marker of identification with the city’s perseverance and steadiness. Nowadays, Debrecen is respected as the guardian of the Hungarians, the politically firm city and of course it has remained the greatest intellectual and spiritual center of the Hungarian Reformed people. Although influential people suggested the alternative Hungarian Geneva, the inhabitants of Debrecen finally retained the Calvinist Rome expression.

 

The Invocation of Calvin in the 1848-1849 War of Independence

As we have seen, the Reformed Church was considered to be the national Hungarian church, and as such distinguished from the international Roman Catholic Church, ruled from Rome. The Reformed Church saw Debrecen as its spiritual capital. But how was the Reformer himself, John Calvin, perceived by the Reformed Hungarians? Did he play any role in the identity politics of the Reformed minority and was he invoked as their patron saint in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?

The first event to consider in the light of these questions has to be the 1848-1849 War of Independence, when the Hungarians rose up against the Austrian Habsburgs and declared Debrecen their capital. In the Reformed College, the school of the Calvinists, the Declaration of Independence of the Hungarian Nation was drafted in the joint session of the Lower and Upper House of the National Assembly. On April 14, 1849, the Declaration was announced in the main Calvinist church, in the Debrecen Nagytemplom. Lajos Kossuth, the leader of the Hungarian movement, declared Debrecen the guardian city of freedom.

How did Reformed leaders connect Calvin to the War of Independence? Among the leaders and soldiers of the War of Independence, the Catholics were usually a majority. Kossuth was a Lutheran and the prime minister, Lajos Batthyány, was a Catholic. But the majority of the soldiers in the troops were Reformed. Almost all professors, students and ministers from Debrecen joined the War of Independence. It is therefore no coincidence that Debrecen became the center of the upsurge.

Calvin played an important role for the Reformed Hungarians in legitimizing the war against the Habsburg monarch. At Christmas 1848, the minister of the main church of Debrecen reflected on the political situation and covertly referred to Kossuth while preaching: “God cannot allow that man wearing His image lives in such a miserable oppression forever. These thoughts raised a wish for a savior in their souls, a savior, who will conquer human rights.” The minister, András Fésüs, was clearly upset that the Habsburg monarch trampled the freedom of the nation underfoot and strove to bring up “the people in obtuseness”. Fésüs ended by saying that the liberator generation must come: “Maybe, …that … we also have to travel through the dark valley of death for the freedom of our nation: but from the bones of the dead that wore away in the valley of death, the champions of truth will resurrect in the grandchildren, who will certainly conquer this nation’s bloodstained freedom and they will pass on its sweet fruits to our descendants.”

This conviction was undoubtedly inspired by Calvin’s Institutes.  This work was very well-known at the Debrecen College and all the Reformed ministers were supposed to be familiar with it too. Calvin, of course, did not advocate any specific political system: he considered a “state governed by the civic law and order” most acceptable for his own era, but allowed for different forms of government, each of which could be given by God for the purpose of ensuring order, peace, justice and defense for the people. In situations of tyranny, however, God could send a savior: “Sometimes He calls one of His servants … and entrusts him … to save the unfairly oppressed from its remorseful miseries. This is how the Lord brought salvation…for Israel by Moses.” It is impossible not to recognize this Calvinist belief in the sermons of the Hungarian Reformed preachers. That Lajos Kossuth was called the “Moses of the Hungarians,” illustrates that biblical images used by Calvin had found their way into the sermons of the ministers.

Calvin not only provided legitimacy for the uprising against the king, but also supplied a theological foundation for the revolutionary slogan, adopted from the French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. A sermon of another minister of the Nagytemplom, Mihály Könyves Tóth, may serve as an example. Tóth was called ‘Kossuth’s priest’, because he served as spiritual advisor to Lajos Kossuth. It is worth noticing that this famous minister presented the revolutionary slogan in a Calvinist spirit. On March 26, 1848 he gave a sermon on the following Biblical passages: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Gal 5:1; 5:5; 5:13-14).

Tóth connected these passages with the Reformed perspective on the revolution and its consequences for civic life. He told his congregation that these passages consider Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity on a Biblical basis. Addressing the entire nation, he said: “And you, dear, sweet Homeland! Sublime Hungarian Home! Hear the divine propagator of the real felicific equality, real felicific freedom, real felicific brotherhood, Christ Jesus”. This sermon was followed two weeks later by a second one, in which Tóth explained in detail that these revolutionary slogans cannot be realized only in themselves. Only the Biblical interpretation “ennobles” “the slogans of the civic Holy Trinity that merged on the lips of the nations”, as he calls the concept of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, because only the Christian understands it well who “looks from the perspective of the perfect law of freedom”.

How should we interpret these sermons, which were disseminated all around Hungary? It seems that the Calvinists of Debrecen, the students of the College and the Reformed people taking part in the War of Independence were encouraged to fight, not only by the slogans of the French Revolution, but by a specific concept of predestination. They believed that God had chosen them to perform great historical tasks for Hungary, even if it would cost their lives. One of the strongest effects of their vivid puritan beliefs was that they were the “Elect” in the Calvinist sense, bearing a sense of responsibility for the nation. The letters of the students setting out to fight testify to this as well. Here we see recollections of Calvin’s theology reflected in the Hungarian War of Independence. It is against this background that we can understand why everybody drew up behind the “Moses of the Hungarians,” “the savior sent by God.”

When we emphasize the significance of Calvin’s spirit in the 1848-49 Revolution, we do not intend to state that he was its exclusive source of inspiration. It is true that as a result of their Reformed thinking, from the sixteenth century onward the Calvinists represented free thinking, and this led them to their conviction that they had a right to oppose a despotic ruler. This conviction has become a natural sentiment for all the Magyars, not only in this era but in past centuries as well. In this manner Calvin only had an indirect effect on the freedom-fight against the Austrians, but this effect was so strong that it bonded Catholics and Protestants in the focus on national unity. The 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence therefore was not perceived as a fight between the Protestants and the Catholic Habsburgs or Austrians, but rather as a nation fighting against an oppressive power for its independence. The Habsburgs, however, saw it as mainly a rising of the Protestants.

The Hungarians won this War of Independence. They deprived the Habsburgs of the Hungarian crown and announced the independence of the nation in Debrecen on April 14, 1849. However, the Austrian Emperor asked for the help of the Russian Czar, who marched with great armies against already-independent Hungary. The Hungarian armies had to capitulate. The Austrians executed the prime minister and the generals. The Debrecen Reformed College was almost dissolved.

 

Calvin’s Image in Hungarian Literature

After 1849, an independent Hungarian state seemed hard to realize. But precisely for that reason, Hungarian nationalism remained a vital force in society. Newspapers, novels, scientific research, and even music in the Hungarian language became very popular. Hungarian identity expressed itself mainly in this cultural domain. For our purposes, it is important to note that the Reformed minority played an important role in the development of Hungarian literature: some estimate that two-thirds of all prose and poetry was produced by Reformed Hungarians. Accordingly, it is particularly within the field of literature that we find important nineteenth-century reflections on Calvin and his influence on Hungarian society.

Endre Ady (1877-1919), ranked among the most talented writers of his generation, was proud of being a Calvinist. He dealt with Calvin and Calvinism in several of his poems. Calling his father and himself “two stiff-necked Hungarian Calvinists” in his poem “Crucifix in the Forest,” he reflected upon his faith in Christ in many of his writings, but perhaps most beautifully in a poem that describes how he went to his hometown and attended a service in the old Calvin Church. In poems like these, Ady presented himself as an always rebellious Calvinist, who wanted to bring new things to his people.

Calvin himself also appeared in Ady’s poems. In many of his poems, Calvin appeared as God’s strongman, as a rock, chosen by God. He was associated with the purity of Scripture. In one of the poems Ady let Calvin raise the question of whether his readers were as capable as he himself in showing new paths through obedience to God’s Word. In all of these poems, Calvin appeared as someone who altered history, including the history of the Hungarians. Careful not to associate Calvin with one nation or national history in particular (not France, Germany, or Hungary), the poet saw Calvin as transcending national boundaries. Calvin belonged to all nations.

A younger contemporary, Lajos Áprily (1887-1967) from Transylvania, was also a truly Reformed poet. Today, he is still best known for his oversight of the production of the Reformed hymn book (1948).  His Biblically-inspired poems are more interesting for our purposes.  One of the poems explicitly deals with Calvin (“Calvin, 1535”). In this poem, Calvin sits in Basel and sees the red glow of bonfires from Paris. He remembers the Apostle Paul, and starts working ardently. He starts writing about God’s glory, predestination and mercy and subsequently begins to teach and to reshape the world. How important these teachings were for Aprily, and how closely the poet associated Calvin with his theology, is illustrated by the fact that the poem culminates in the writing of the Institutes.

More personal representations of Calvin did exist, though. Mihály Szabolcska’s poem “Calvin” portrays the reformer as someone called by God just like Moses and the Apostle Paul - someone who is turned into a devoted Christ-follower by a stroke of lightning. Gyula Muraközy saw Calvin as someone chiseled of hard granite, but humble before God at the same time. Mihály Baja asked: “Who was John Calvin?” His answer made clear that for the Hungarians, Calvin was not a “saint”: he explicitly rejected the Roman Catholic “intercession of the saints” in favor of sola scriptura. Yet the Hungarians, continued Baja, inherited this sola scriptura doctrine from Calvin. Therefore, the poet felt justified to conclude: “Region of Tisza, Duna, home of Hungarians: So Calvin’s truth became Hungarian religion.”

One of the best examples of how much Calvin inspired Hungarian writers and poets, is the poem “On seeing the Reformation Monument, Geneva” by the Roman Catholic Gyula Illyés. Written in 1946 at the Geneva memorial, the poem offers descriptions of the monument, the historical figures it represents and the importance of these figures. Interestingly, István Bocskay also figures in the poem, as someone who engaged in an armed struggle for freedom of religion. Then the poet remembers all the battles, sufferings, and agonies that the Reformation brought about. In conclusion, he asks: “Do you believe there would be a Hungarian nation, if there had been no Calvin?” His answer is: “I do not think so.” So, Gyula Illyés’s theme is the world-shaping importance of the Reformation -- an influence, exercised especially by Calvin and his followers, that had considerably affected the Hungarians, too.

 

Calvin Celebrations in Hungary

Though Hungarians in the early twentieth century were actively involved in planning the Reformation monument in Geneva as well as in the celebrations of 1909, historical sources are silent about celebrations marking the three hundredth anniversary of Calvin’s birth in 1809. Probably the memory of the austere Habsburg oppression weighed on the souls of the Hungarian Reformed people. But after the 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence, retaliations could not break the nation either. The believers of the Helvetic Reformation undertook a kind of silent resistance where possible. In this political and social atmosphere we have to situate the three hundredth anniversary of Calvin’s death in 1864. The greatest ecclesiastical event of this year was the Calvin memorial. 1909, the four hundredth anniversary of Calvin’s birth, was also a year of remembrance and was a much more spectacular and freer celebration. Finally, in the year 1936, considerable attention was paid to the four hundredth jubilee of the first publishing of the Institutes. I will discuss these three commemorations successively.

 

Remembering Calvin – 1864

The context in which the Calvin commemoration in 1864 took place was different in at least one respect from the festivities in other European countries. Just like everywhere else, the Reformed organized a great deal of activities and were active in publicizing the Genevan reformer – as this section will show at length. But the political and religious situation in Hungary resulted in a striking difference. While in the rest of Europe the fight between liberalism and Pope Pius IX’s promotion of the Jesuits’ ultramontane movement was remarkably present in the Calvin commemorations, in Hungary the aftermath of the War of Independence created another political landscape. On the contrary, here Catholics even often participated in the celebrations.

            To explain this, one has to take into account the events that occurred just a few years prior to 1864.  The 1864 Calvin commemoration had a very important precursor in 1859-60. The Austrian Imperial government held the Protestants primarily responsible for the 1848-49 Revolution. Therefore by his famous so-called “patens” decree of September 1859, the emperor king restricted the autonomy of the Reformed Church. He intended to create in many respects a state-dependent status for the Reformed, bound to the imperial power. This decree, however, was not obeyed by the Reformed, and was fiercely opposed. The Catholics in Hungary watched this with sympathy, since during that period they endured many attacks as well.

On January 11, 1860 a famous meeting of the Transtibiscan Reformed Church District assembled in Debrecen in opposition to this decree. The emperor-king had no choice but to rescind it on May 15. The royal court, however, viewed these events in Debrecen as a reinforcement of their opinion that the responsibility for the 1848-49 Revolution and War of Independence lay predominantly with the Protestants. Since the organization for the events commemorating Calvin’s death already started in 1861, these events highly influenced the way in which Calvin was remembered by the Hungarians in 1864.

In order to understand the organization behind the Calvin festivities one should realize that there was no united Reformed church, but merely five independent church districts. This was a result of the political situation in those times. Nineteenth-century Hungary emerged from two political states, both of them having the Austrian Emperor as king. One of them was called the Hungarian Kingdom, the other was the Transylvanian Principality; they united only in 1868 in order to form the Hungarian Kingdom together. The kingdom as form of state existed until 1 February 1946. Thus, the Hungarian Reformed people lived in four autonomic church districts in the Kingdom, and in Transylvania in one block. The     unification of these districts into one Hungarian Reformed church had to wait until 1881. The superintendents, who were officially called bishops from 1881, were in charge of the church districts.

The assembly of one of these districts, the Transdanubian Church District, raised the issue of a worthy remembrance of Calvin’s death already in 1861. In response, each church district and the Transylvanian Reformed Church organized their own commemorations. In what follows, I want to give an overview of the multitude of local and regional celebrations – meanwhile focusing on the characteristics of the Hungarian Calvin celebrations. They are ordered according to the respective church districts.

On May 22, the first of these events, in the Danubian Church District, featured the famous preacher János Dobos as well as Superintendent Pál Török as speakers. Török described the big Reformation-era events, the evolution of the confessions and the Council of Trent. He thus embedded Calvin in a clearly historical framework.

 The celebration of the Transdanubian Church District on May 29 was more exuberant.  Ministers and members from the entire church district traveled to Pápa to hear Superintendent Mihály Nagy opening the ceremonial service and, subsequently, to listen to Béla Széki, chief clerk, and to a biographical remembrance speech by Professor János Kiss. They heard pastor Ignác Stettner’s ode to Calvin and a performance by the youth choir. The next day there was a Church District Assembly, which decided not only to print the speeches held at this occasion but also to dedicate a Calvin sculpture at the College of Pápa.

Interestingly enough, as a result of instructions given by church officials in Pápa, large numbers of local celebrations were organized as well. Such meetings could include Roman Catholic participants, as was illustrated in Rév-Komárom, where a men’s choir largely consisting of Catholics contributed to the festivities. This was a memorable event, because due to the ordinances of the Counter Reformation, for 120 years until 1783 Calvinist ministers were not even allowed to enter the town, and if a Reformed person had to be buried, the minister was not allowed to sing at the funeral service. Now the situation had changed enormously.

The Tiszáninnen Church District had a memorial assembly in Sárospatak on July 10. Since it was a Sunday, a worship service probably also took place, giving a structure to the remembrance. On the ceremonial occasion, József Heiszler, Professor of Theology, gave a speech entitled “On the 300th Commemoration of John Calvin’s Death”. József Heiszler unhesitatingly defined the essence of the Reformation and spoke about a number of important elements in Calvin’s teachings: “The great man of Geneva wanted three things at the same time: he wanted to reform doctrines, ceremonies, and morals, and so he created a new spirituality, a new service, and a new Christian life.”

 At the assembly of the Transtibiscan Church District, which was held from February 7 to 12, 1864 – according to the reports – the then officiating bishop asked with reference to the three hundredth anniversary of John Calvin’s death “how our congregations in the church district should celebrate that memorable day to express their reverent respect for that great reformer”. The following was decided: “Since the reformer of honorable memory did not support any kind of festivals in such a degree, that he even wished not to set up a memorial or gravestone on his grave, our assembly does not wish the congregations to celebrate this event in any way, thus showing reverent respect for him and following his wish and spirituality on the day of the three hundredth anniversary of his death, to his memory”.

But the wish to celebrate was much stronger than this line of argument. Although the “Bishop” of the Transtibiscan Church District, the superintendent and the assembly did not do anything, the General Assembly of the Alsó-Szabolcs and the Hajdú-District Reformed Classes decided nevertheless on June 15, 1864 to “set up an everlasting and living memorial to the great spirit of Calvin” by establishing the “Hungarian Reformed Benevolent Association”, with the goal to help weak congregations”. The assembly also announced that there was a Calvin celebration in a settlement called Mikola, in which the Roman Catholics, the Greek Catholics and the Jews took part as well. The money donated was offered to the Reformed Hungarians in Romanian Moldavia and Wallachia (Havasalföld).

The Transylvanian Reformed Church remembered Calvin on June 6, 1864. At this celebration, intended for all the Transylvanian Reformed, the Farkas Street Church of Kolozsvár was packed with people. Minister Péter Nagy preached and Bishop Sámuel Bodola delivered a speech about Calvin. There were other speeches too during the daylong celebration.  These speeches were published in a separate booklet, the revenues of which were given to the newly established Calvin Foundation.

The spiritual and intellectual benefits of these solemn memorials can be summarized by saying that Calvin stirred the Reformed Hungarians again, and it seems, many people drew up behind him zealously. In fact, the series of remembrances was started by the assembly of the Veszprém Classis on 23-25 February, 1864. What they drafted is a good summary for all of Hungary: “The three hundred year old spirituality of Calvin starts to hover above our Hungarian Reformed Church again, inspiring it and exorcising both the demons of ignorance and those of idleness.”

 

Publications of the Calvin-Remembrance – 1864

Since an amazing number of publications were dedicated to the remembrance of Calvin during the memorial year 1864, I will only mention the publications that had nationwide significance. I will single out three significant events.

First, the most significant event of the year was undoubtedly the first Hungarian Calvin biography: Imre Révész’s Calvin’s life and Calvinism (1864). The book dealt with Calvin’s life in 294 pages, and in forty pages the author summarizes the essence of Calvin’s teachings. The first print had run out already in advance of publication, thus they published it again in the same year. The author introduced himself as “a minister of the Debrecen Reformed Church and a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences”. Révész was aware of the importance of his work. Therefore he presented all data carefully. He worked on the book for no less than ten years. He used twenty-two earlier books, including Calvin’s own autobiographical description. The biography itself is characterized by a most detailed way of description. The nature of its narrative was not influenced by the prevailing romantic mode of biography writing, but it concentrated on historical evidence.  Révész situated everything with chronological punctuality and did not avoid the most difficult topics either, such as the doctrine of predestination or the Servetus case. Of course there were experts in history, such as Ferenc Szilágyi, who questioned Révész’s objectivity, but this charge was refuted by the writer himself. This debate on Révész’ biography was published as well.

Second, those reading Révész’s biography who became so enthusiastic about Calvin that they wanted to read his own works, were given the opportunity by the publisher and bookseller Károly Osterlamm to order all the works of Calvin. This is the famous international series that was published as the Ioannis Calvini Opera volumes (1863-1896) within the Corpus Reformatorum series. It found many Hungarians readers, as one example may show: the Transdanubian ministers decided that all of them would order the series, which consisted of 56 volumes.

Third, besides primary and secondary sources on John Calvin, all Protestant periodicals paid attention to the Calvin celebration. A nice example is the influential Protestant Church and School Paper, that published in its issue of May 22, 1864 both a leading article written by an anonymous author in memory of Calvin, and Calvin’s full Preface to the Institutes, which was in fact a letter of dedication addressed to King Francis I of France. The editorial itself was a serious piece, which presented Calvin as a guide in an era that had lost its way. This is why Calvin was relevant in the confusing nineteenth century as well. After these introductory thoughts, the author compared the essence of Luther’s and Calvin’s theology. In this, he did not succeed that well, since in an effort to present the Calvinist doctrine of the predestination, he only noticed the logical contradiction. He stated that “Calvin rejected repentance completely”. In this he failed to notice that Calvin emphasized more than anything else the forgiveness in Christ, by grace.

 

The 1909 Remembrance and Celebrations

On the four hundredth anniversary of Calvin’s birth, Hungarian celebrations were much better organized. The national organization of the Reformed Church already existed and that influenced significantly the cohesiveness of the celebration. The activities took place on three different levels: international, in national and local church life, and in the domain of the theologians. Altogether these activities display some significant changes compared with the situation in 1864.

In the international Calvin celebration in Geneva – held from 2 to 10 July - the Hungarian Reformed played an important role. Once just a tolerated minority, now they were able to connect openly and freely with other Reformed Christians from all over Europe. No less than 111 Hungarians joined representatives from other countries with large Calvinist populations, like Scotland. These 111 Hungarians represented approximately 2.5 million Reformed believers. They were present not just as guests, but as organizers and inaugural members. Their journey was organized by the Hungarian Calvin Association, that later published a commemorative booklet.

But the participation in the international celebration was only one part of the festive program of the Hungarian Reformed. Within the church body itself a great number of activities were organized. This was directed by the general convent of the Hungarian Reformed Church, the supreme body that since the unification of 1881 combined the five church districts. It set the date to remember Calvin on Reformation Day, October 31, 1909. In the long run-up to this date all the church districts organized their own celebrations.  At the classis and congregation level there were an overwhelming number of activities. Each congregation participated, often in combination with Reformed educational institutions or national organizations.

The church leadership cooperated closely with the Calvin Alliance. This organization aimed at strengthening religious life among church members in a Calvinist spirit. In doing so, it had to battle two major forces that influenced the Hungarian Reformed. On the one hand liberalism became influential in Hungary and also among church members, which eventually led to a less religious life-style and sometimes to an open confession of atheism. On the other hand the Christian Endeavor Society (CE) took hold among many Reformed. That was an interdenominational missionary movement, with a strong emphasis on youth and practical piety. The Calvin Alliance people considered the non-confessional basis of the CE movement flawed.2

For church leaders and the Calvin Alliance the 400th anniversary of Calvin’s birth was a major opportunity to keep the Reformed Church on the confessional path. We could assert therefore, that while the 1864 commemoration had a nation awakening effect, the 1909 festivities had a church rescuing role. Therefore they decided (1) to participate in the activities of the international celebrations, (2) to write and translate a multitude of works domestically, prompting more familiarity with the Calvinist theology, and (3) to empower the local churches’ Calvinist outlook, by allowing them to organize events related to the Reformer’s 400th anniversary.

To get a sense of the atmosphere of the 1909 celebrations, it is worth highlighting the Calvin celebration of the National Reformed Association of Ministers at the Debrecen Nagytemplom, where eight hundred ministers in Geneva robes walked in.  Professor Emile Doumergue took part in this celebration. Doumergue was the biographer of Calvin and right then the most important Calvin researcher. If published, the programs, speeches, writings, essays, poems or songs composed for the different occasions in 1909 would fill several volumes. In fact, this national elated atmosphere was crowned by the ceremonial assembly of the general convent, to which -- after the opening words of the leadership -- the Transylvanian Bishop Béla Kenessey delivered a powerful speech, emphasizing the significance of Calvin from the point of view of the general Christian church and the Hungarian Reformed people. It would be difficult to say what effect the nationwide celebration had on the people or on the society as a whole. Emile Doumergue, the external observer, was perhaps the most objective judge: “Hungary is really Calvinist. More Calvinist than one would imagine. But not in the common sense of the word.”

The establishment of the previously-mentioned Calvin Association was an important event as well. It was founded as a charitable organization within the Reformed Church in 1908. The goal of this association was “to unite the believers of the Hungarian Calvinist Church by developing social sensitivity, strengthening religiosity, and discovering, preventing, and curing social illnesses”. The Calvin Association stimulated a movement for home mission, founded social welfare institutions, local credit unions, marketing boards and savings-clubs.

As part of the celebrations, there were attempts to set the memory of the Genevan reformer in stone. A national collection was started for a large Calvin sculpture, to be erected of course in Debrecen. However, we do not know why this work never materialized.  The sculptor János Horvai deserves special mention.  He handed in an application to design the Geneva memorial of the Reformation in 1909. He got the second or the third place.  Christ stands in the high center, while Calvin is sitting a bit lower with the Holy Scripture, and on the two sides reformers of various nations can be seen. The judges considered it so good that they sent its bronze copy to the Hungarian Reformed as a present. This work is at the Ráday College in Budapest today.

Thirdly and finally, in 1909 the celebrations did not play an exclusive role any longer in the festivities, since the theologians worked a lot, quietly and diligently. In honor of the anniversary, Sándor Czeglédy, the minister of Nagysalló, founded the Society of Calvin Translators. He himself launched and edited the series “The Works of John Calvin”, in which works that had not been previously translated into Hungarian were published. In this series they published as well Theodore Beza’s “John Calvin’s Life” and other writings related to Calvin’s theology. The publication that required the greatest translation effort was the 1559 edition of the Institutio Religionis Christianae. Sándor Czeglédy and Gusztáv Rábold committed themselves to this new translation. The four parts of this book were published in two volumes, the first in 1909 and the second in 1910. The Hungarian Reformed people have been using this edition ever since, because there is no new translation available.

As in 1864 Imre Révész’ Calvin biography was very popular.  A number of new biographies also came out in 1909, for example Pál Pruzsinszky’s work titled John Calvin, which was published in Budapest. Sándor Jancsó wrote an interesting biography in Nagyenyed; its title was John Calvin’s Life and his Church Polity. In Debrecen, József S. Szabó also wrote a Calvin biography: John Calvin’s Life and his Reformation (1908). It became widely popular. The first 21,000 copies were rapidly sold out and another 20,000 copies needed to be printed in 1909. In the year of the anniversary, Imre Révész’ Calvin’s Life and Calvinism was reprinted as well.

From a theological point of view, the first serious volume of essays about Calvin also appeared in 1909, in a series of publications of the Hungarian Protestant Literary Society, with the title Remembering Calvin. The titles of the essays give an insight in their content: Pál Pruzsinszky on “Calvin’s Character as Reflected by His Correspondence”; József Erdős with “Calvin as Exegete”; Károly Nagy: “Calvin as Dogmatist and Ethicist”; Géza Antal discussing “Calvin as Pedagogue and Founder of Schools”; Béla Kun on “Calvin as Church Organizer” and, finally, István Pap about “Calvin as Minister”. In the years following this volume’s publication, other valuable essays came out as well.

In sum, when we compare the 1909 events to the Calvin commemoration of 1864, we see all the more clearly that 1864 was inspired by a nation-awakening mood. Then essentially the districts evoked Calvin’s memory during centralized festivities attended by representatives of the local churches. In general, Calvin’s appreciation has been manifest by emphasizing its significance and effect over the Hungarian Reformed community. It had minimal international impact. In 1909, however, the Hungarian Reformed celebrated under different historical circumstances. By this time rational liberalism and interdenominational pietism threatened the legacy of the Reformed Church. Internal mission organizations like the Calvin Alliance were designed to counteract these outside influences. The Calvin festivities of 1909 were a welcome opportunity to once more underline the significance of solid Reformed faith.

 

Remembering Calvin in 1936

Not only was Calvin’s birthday celebrated, but the four hundredth anniversary of the first publication of his magnum opus, the Institutes, was celebrated as well.  Due to its specific nature, this Calvin celebration was different in scope and content that the earlier events. The previous, larger remembrances were rather ceremonial and spectacular events organized by church leaders, where superintendents’ and bishops’ orations and sermons played a central role. These celebrations left out a thorough examination of Calvinist theology and its scholarly theological elaboration. Because the 1909 Society of Calvin Translators - led by the Pápa professor Sándor Czeglédy - had published many sources and textbooks in Hungarian, the theologians of the 1920s and 1930s had access to much better resources for such a study.

            But while the conditions for theologians had improved, the political situation for the Hungarians was worse. In the aftermath of the First World War the allied powers decided to split up the Hungarian Kingdom, by giving no less than two-thirds to the so-called ‘successor states’. This resulted in millions of Hungarians, many of them Reformed, living outside the new but much smaller Hungary. The 1920 Trianon Peace Treaty, in which the new geopolitical situation was set out, became an important negative memory for Hungarians.

Also the 1936 celebrations were influenced by these political changes. The Reformed Churches in and outside the Hungarian borders, most notably the Transylvanian one now under Romanian rule, and the one in what was left of Hungary, could no longer celebrate together. Only in some scholarly projects, as we will see below, was there a form of cooperation. The political situation, moreover, resulted in two different types of Calvinism, both considered as an answer to the situation the Hungarian Reformed faced after Trianon. Both these movements were deeply confessional and were also influenced by the Dutch Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper.

In Transylvania and the northeastern part of Hungary, the area suffering the most from the loss of the former Hungarian unity, this version was expressed in a “faith reviving Calvinism.” This was characterized by a concentration on confessional documents – the Second Helvetic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism - and  on the church itself, and combined with inner mission in order to strengthen the Reformed and Hungarian identity of church members. The other answer to the situation was given by scholars like Jenő Sebestyén, a professor from Budapest known as the “Hungarian Kuyper.” This version was labeled “historic Calvinism”, because of its focus on historical studies and Calvinist orthodoxy, and was mainly influential in the middle of the country and Budapest.

Scholars from both stances cooperated in what was the most important event of the year: the publication of a 461-page volume entitled: Calvin and Calvinism. The Reformed Theological Faculty of Debrecen University charged its famous professor of Church History, Imre Révész, with the scholarly elaboration of the most important parts of Calvin’s theology in this book. This younger Imre Révész was the grandson of the previously-mentioned biographer Imre Révész. This work was one of the most durable Hungarian “monuments” to Calvin so far, because in this volume, the Reformer’s spirituality was recorded by some of the most important theologians of that time. The eighteen essays analyzed fundamental topics of Calvin’s theology from a scholarly perspective. This work was made possible through the unique cooperation of Biblical scholars, systematic theologians, historians and practical theologians, and it takes the reader to the depth and height of Calvin’s thinking. From a scholarly perspective this book no doubt exceeds everything that the orators and writers of the previous festive events collectively and intellectually had to offer.

Many of its authors were professors of theology at Debrecen University (back then called the István Tisza Royal Hungarian University of Sciences), two were professors from Transylvania, some became later professors of Debrecen University, and some were independent of the University. The authors were well acquainted with international Calvin research. Imre Révész, the book’s editor, was a pupil of Emile Doumergue; resulting in his preference for historical essays. Some of the authors knew Dutch as well. Professor Kálmán Kállay, for example, even taught the Dutch language. Professor Benjámin Csánki not only spoke Dutch, he had excellent knowledge of Herman Bavinck’s and Abraham Kuyper’s theology. He included it in his Debrecen curriculum.

Csánki’s essay is worth a bit more attention, since it combined Calvin’s theology in a direct way with the post-Trianon situation. His study deals with Calvin’s doctrine of predestination and shows a great familiarity with Kuyper’s reading of Calvin on this topic. For Csánki predestination provided an explanation and a solution for the situation of the Hungarian Reformed. Calvin articulated this doctrine at a time when he was banned from his country, France, and when the Reformed were harshly oppressed. The assurance, however, that all is in God’s hands and that he will deliver his elect, provided a true consolation. Applied to the Hungarian situation, Csánki knew that although God was punishing the Hungarians for their sins, if they were to concentrate on the church and keep Calvin’s theology pure and alive in it, He would take care of the Hungarians as his elect. Trianon tamed the nation, but it would not succeed in taming the church. The doctrine of predestination was the only one with the potential to renew the country, as it had done before in the difficult history of the Hungarians.

 

Calvin in Contemporary Hungary

The Calvin celebration of 1936 was of course not the last occasion when the Genevan reformer was commemorated by Reformed Hungarians.  During the Communist era and thereafter, in the democratic Republic of Hungary, John Calvin played an important role in the identity politics of the Hungarian Reformed Church and its institutions. The scope of this article is, however, limited to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Further investigation has to be conducted, not only to deepen our understanding of the period under discussion in this article, but also to study the period after 1936.

That John Calvin is still present in the memory of modern Hungarians, is a conclusion that is already clear in this stage of research. One of the central squares of Budapest is named after him, just like the Reformed Church that is to be found on it. Moreover, in 2000 a Calvin sculpture, created by Barna Búza, was erected there and inaugurated on the opening day of the 4th General Assembly of the Hungarian Reformed Church, on 30 June 2000. Besides the Reformed Church’s leadership, prominent people like Árpád Göncz, President of the Republic of Hungary, László Tőkés, Bishop of the Transylvanian Királyhágómellék District, Archbishop István Seregély, President of the Hungarian Catholic Episcopal Conference and Béla Harmati, President-Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church were present. A letter of greeting from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was read.

Not only Budapest, but also many other cities and villages in Hungary have named streets, squares and alleys after Calvin, predominantly of course in those regions where Reformed people are in the majority, but not only there. And on the other hand, some cities with significant Reformed populations lack any such reference to Calvin. In the border regions of neighboring countries, where many Hungarians live separated from the rest of Hungary since the 1920 Trianon decrees, the new authorities almost everywhere changed street names.

Besides street names, the names of a number of institutions also make sure Calvin is still present in the public domain. The National Reformed Association of Ministers established two secondary educational institutions for the orphans of ministers. Both got the name “Kálvineum”. One, for boys, was founded in Hajdúböszörmény, in 1914. The other, for girls, was established in Nyíregyháza, in 1926. Similarly, the new Reformed Church Center in Bucharest (capital of Romania), founded in the 1990s, took the name “Kálvineum”, on the grounds of which Calvin’s bust was set up. The Reformed Church founded its central press in Budapest, in 1992, which operates under the name John Calvin Press. In Komárom (Slovakia) a theological seminary came into existence in 1994 for the Slovakian Hungarians and Slovakian Reformed people, which bears the name “John Calvin Institution”. In Beregszász (Ukraine), the press of the local Reformed people was named after Calvin some years ago. One of the church districts of the numerous Reformed Hungarians living in the United States has been called Calvin Synod since 1957. In the end we can also mention that in Eger, one of the archbishop seats of the Hungarian Catholics, the small Reformed congregation gave the name Calvin House to their center in 1996.

 

Conclusion

The poet Mihály Baja was more right than he himself would have imagined when he wrote: “Calvin’s truth became Hungarian religion.” More than in other countries, in Hungary Calvinism became identified with the Hungarian language, culture, and nation. Despite the Counter Reformation, a significant part of the Hungarian population stayed Reformed and viewed their church as the national one, as opposed to the Rome-directed and Latin-using Catholic church. Although a minority, the Hungarian Reformed perceived themselves as the backbone of the nation. Being Calvinist meant being a good Hungarian.

It is therefore no big surprise that also in the modern era, from the beginning of the nineteenth century onward, John Calvin was commemorated by the Hungarian Reformed in a number of ways – and often in a way clearly connected to their own national identity. In the 1848-1849 War of Independence Calvin’s theological views were used by a number of Reformed pastors to legitimize the revolt against the Habsburg king. Calvin’s view on justified uprisings against despotic rule inspired the Reformed to take up arms against the Habsburg authorities for the sake of the Hungarian nation. Although the war did not finally meet its objective, Hungarian nationalism continued in a less political, and more cultural way. Literature in the vernacular became widely popular. It is in these novels and poems that we meet Calvin again, as an icon of faith, steadfastness and humility before God. As such he could inspire Hungarians in the nineteenth century, still under Habsburg rule.

The person of Calvin was central to the three commemorations devoted to the Genevan reformer in 1864, 1909, and 1936. Each of these was characterized by the culture and politics of the period. The 1864 festivities were all organized on a regional level, without any kind of national coordination. This corresponded to the decentralized structure of the Hungarian Reformed Church at that time.  Speeches by ministers in special services formed the core of the commemoration. 1909 produced a rather different type of festivities. As a result of the Ausgleich Hungarian life, including that of Reformed institutions, had developed massively. A new sense of national pride dominated. Now, the festivities were nationally coordinated, because the authority within the Hungarian Reformed Church had been centralized. The Hungarians also participated prominently in the international celebrations in Geneva. While the 1864 festivities were regional and small-scale, in 1909 self-confidence resulted in a nationwide celebration. Finally, in 1936 the focus was more on Calvin’s theology than on his personality, not surprisingly since it was a celebration of Calvin’s magnum opus the Institutes.

Books, sculptures, and street names are all expressions and articulations of the importance attributed to John Calvin by the Reformed Hungarians. They were not the only ones: Lutherans and Catholics also acknowledged now and then that Calvin was crucial to Hungarian identity. The famous Catholic poet Illyés was therefore a spokesman for many when he testified that there would not have been a Hungarian nation without John Calvin. In Hungary Calvin was not in the first instance the tyrant of Geneva, or the rigid, strict theologian, but a national icon. In the modern era Calvin, therefore, was more welcome in Hungary than in any of the countries he actually lived in.

 

Kálvin jubileumi emlékkönyv. A magyarok genfi útja (Calvin memorial volume. The Road of Hungarians to Geneva), (Budapest, 1910), p. 83, cites Doumergue’s ‘Visszaemlékezés és köszönet’ published in the Protestáns Egyházi és Iskolai Lap (Protestant Church and School Paper) (hereafter cited as PEIL).

Illyés, Gyula, ‘A reformáció genfi emlékműve előtt,’ (On seeing the Reformation Monument, Geneva) in idem, Selected Poems, trans. John Wilkinson (London, 1971), p. 54. (For the benefit of those who use Hungarian catalogues, the Hungarian reference system, which puts the last name of an author first, will be used throughout this essay.)

Bihary, Michael, Bibliographia Calviniana, 1850-1997. 3rd ed. (Prague, 2000).

Kool, Anne-Marie, God Moves in a Mysterious Way: The Hungarian Protestant Foreign Mission Movement (1756-1951) (Zoetermeer, 1993), p. 136.

Exceptions include Fata, Martá, ‘Confessio Hungarica versus confessio Germanica? Die Rolle der Konfessionen in der Abgrenzung der Ethnien und der Bildung des Nationalbewusstseins am Beispiel des frühneuzeitlichen Ungarn’ in Religion, Ethnie, Nation und die Aushandlung von Identitäten. Regionale Religionspolitik in Ostmittel- und Südosteuropa, ed. István Keule (Berlin, 2005), pp. 147-164. 

Zsindely, Endre, ‘Bullinger Henrik magyar kapcsolatai,’ in Studia et acta ecclesiastica, ed. Bartha Tibor 5 vols. (Budapest, 1967), 2: 57-86; and also Révész, Imre, ‘Méliusz és Kálvin’ in Kálvin és a kálvinizmus (Debrecen, 1936), pp. 295-340.

Révész, ‘Méliusz és Kálvin’ (see above, n. 6), pp. 295-340.

Révész, Imre, ‘A kistemplom történetének legszebb napja,’ in Tegnap és ma és örökké (Debrecen, 1944), p. 399. Révész cites Kornis, Gyula, a Catholic historian’s work entitled as A magyar művelődés eszményei (The Ideals of Hungarian Culture).

Ibid., p. 399.

We are not sure whether Kazinczy took this attribute from Ferenc Dávid or not. It seems from the historian Imre Révész’s writing that he credits Kazinczy with it, but at the same time he is aware that it is from Ferenc Dávid. See Révész, Imre, ‘Debrecen lelke,’ in Tegnap és ma és örökké (Debrecen, 1944), p. 358.

Tóth, Béla, Szájrul szájra. A magyarság szálló igéi (Budapest, 1901; repr. Budapest, 2002), pp. 183-184 and see also Révész, Imre, ‘Méliusz Péter és a reformáció két arca,’ in Tegnap és ma és örökké (Debrecen, 1944), p. 365. According to Révész, Ferenc Dávid had Méliusz criticized by an anonymous Unitarian writer as if he were an ignorant and cowardly hierarch. This is why he mocks him as Pope Peter.

Balogh, Ferenc, A magyar protestáns egyháztörténelem részletei (Debrecen, 1872), pp. 98-99. See Kathona, Géza, ‘Méliusz Péter és életműve,’ in Studia et acta ecclesiastica, ed. Bartha Tibor 5 vols. (Budapest, 1967), 2: 107.

Győri, János, ‘A Kollégium szerepe a magyar irodalom művelésében,’ in A Debreceni Református Kollégium története (Budapest, 1988), p. 679.

We do not know it exactly. Probably the name Calvinist Rome started to have positive meaning from the second half of the nineteenth century, as a scientist and academician, called Ferenc Szilágyi, uses it in this sense in PEIL (see above, n. 1), in 1864.

Révész, Imre, ‘Debrecen lelke,’ (see above, n. 12), pp. 354-359.

In the course of history, the city got many names: the city of endurance, the old harbour, the guardian city of freedom, cívis city, the Hungarian Geneva, the city looking into the sun and the city of the Phoenix.

Fésűs, András, ‘Karácsonyi egyházi beszéd a debreceni Nagytemplomban,’ in A szabadság szent igéi, ed. Gáborjáni Szabó Botond (Debrecen, 1999), p. 117.

Ibid., p. 120.

The complete Institutes were published in Hungarian already in 1624, translated by Albert Szenczi Molnár.

Kálvin, János, A keresztyén vallás rendszere, (Institutes), 2 vols. trans. Czeglédy, Sándor and Rábold, Gusztáv (Budapest, 1909-1910), 2: 754.

Kálvin, János, Tanítás a keresztyén vallásra 1559, (A selected version) trans. Békési, Andor (Budapest, 1991), p. 301.

Könyves Tóth, Mihály, ‘Mi történt? S mit kell tennünk?,’ in A szabadság szent igéi, ed. Gáborjáni Szabó Botond (Debrecen, 1999), pp. 77-85.

Ibid., p. 85.

Könyves Tóth, Mihály, ‘A keresztyén polgár szabadsága, egyenlősége, testvérisége,’ in A szabadság szent igéi, ed. Gáborjáni Szabó Botond (Debrecen, 1999), p. 91.

Czeglédy, Sándor, ‘A teológia tanítása a Kollégiumban,’ in A Debreceni Református Kollégium története (Budapest, 1988), p. 562.

The Golden Bull (similar to the Magna Carta) created in 1222 has played an important role in Hungarian history during the kings’ era. Article 31 of this document states that if the king does not abide by the laws laid down in the Bull, his subjects are free to rise against the king without being guilty of mutiny. This has been only reinforced by Calvin’s condemnation of ungodly and unjust despots. See Institution IV. 20,24-32 (Vol. II. 771-779).

Illyés, Gyula, ‘A reformáció genfi emlékműve előtt,’ (see above, n. 2), p. 54.

Csohány, János, ‘Kálvin halálának három évszázados emlékünnepe és az első magyar Kálvin-életrajz,’ Theologiai Szemle, 35.4 (1992), 234-237, here 234.

‘Kálvin ünnep a Dunántúli H. Hitv. Egyházkerületben,’ PEIL 7.19 (1864. május 8), 597-598.

‘A Ref. Egyház Dunamelléki Kerületének Tavaszi Közgyűlése,’ PEIL, 7.23 (1864. június 5.), 731-735.

‘Kálvin ünnep a Dunántúli H. Hitv. Egyházkerületben,’ PEIL, 7.19 (1864. május 8.), 597-598.

‘Kálvin ünnep és Kerületi Gyűlés Pápán,’ PEIL, 7.25 (1864. június 19.), 796-800.

Ibid., 800.

We could not find data for this. We only know that they held a church district assembly on the days after Sunday. The report of this assembly does not say how the previous-day celebration went. See Sárospataki Füzetek (Sárospatak Booklets), 1864. ed. Erdélyi János.

Heiszler, József, ‘Kálvin János halálának háromszázados emlékünnepén,’ Sárospataki Füzetek (1864), 531-554.

Ibid., 533.

‘A Tiszántúli Ref. Egyházkerület valódi végzése a Kálvin-ünnepély tárgyában,’ PEIL, 7.18 (1864. május 1.), 575.

‘Az Alsó-Szabolcsi és Hajdúkerületi Reformált Egyházmegye közgyűlése,’ PEIL, 7.30 (1864. július 24.), 961-962.

‘Kálvin ünnepély Mikolán,’ PEIL, 7.25 (1864. június 19.), 804.

‘A Veszprémi Ref. Egyházmegye határozatai,’ PEIL, 7.12 (1864. március 20.), 378.

The original copy of the work is in the Nagykönyvtár at Debrecen College.

This debate was published in the 1864 issues of the PEIL through several weeks in parts.

‘Hirdetések,’ PEIL, 7.14 (1864. április 3.), 447.

‘A Veszprémi Ref. Egyházmegye határozatai,’ PEIL, 7. 12 (1864. március 20.), 378.

This was the only paper  at the time that published church and theological writings regularly.

Kálvin jubileumi emlékkönyv (see above, n. 1.), p. 83.

2 See the ‘History of the Hungarian Reformed Church,’ (Budapest, 1949), p. 410.

Kálvin jubileumi emlékkönyv (see above, n. 1), p. 83.

The quotation is published on the Internet from the statutes of the Calvin Association. Unfortunately, the library copy of the statutes is lost. Its catalogue number is unknown.

Supposedly, it was a plan for years. This program was probably cancelled by World War I.

There is no available original document about the decision of the Geneva Sculpture Committee. According to the Debreceni Protestáns Lap (Debrecen Protestant Journal) 1909, pp. 56 and 71-72, Horvai got the third prize, but Hegyi Füstös István mentions the second prize in his article ‘Kálvin régebbi és újabb ábrázolása’ published in Confessio, 1993/2. Cf. Pierre A. Frey, ‘Le Mouvement international de la Réformation, les conditions de la commande d’une sculpture monumentale, Genève 1902-1917,’ on : http://dawww.epfl.ch/acm/collaborateurs/frey/monument.pdf (consulted on 18 October 2007).

The writings and books published in the series “John Calvin’s Works” are treated in a separate chapter. Kovách, Péter, Az 1909. évi genfi Kálvin-emlékünnepély és a Magyarországi Református Egyház (Debrecen, 1989), pp. 45-47.

At the moment a new translation is in progress at Kolozsvár, Transylvania. It is supposed to be ready by 2009.

See monographs about Calvin’s effect, including eleven works bound together in the Nagykönyvtár at Debrecen College. All writings listed in the section are to be found here. Library reference number: 2-46.962

Kool, God Moves (see above, n. 4), p. 63.

Révész, Imre, et al., Kálvin és a Kálvinismus, tanulmányok az Institutio négyszázadik évfordulójára írták (Debrecen, 1936).

Very similar statements can be found in the Preface of the new translation of the 1536 Institutes given by Imre Révész and Béla Vasady. The authors of this Preface  provided a historical description and systematic interpretation of the first edition of the Institutes. See Kálvin János Institutioja 1536, trans. Victor János (Budapest, 1936), pp. IX-CLXI. The first Hungarian translation of the 1536 Institutes was done by Károly Nagy in Transylvania in 1903.

Calvin sculptures were erected as well in Mátészalka, inaugurated in 1999 on Reformation Day, while renaming the surrounding square Calvin Square. It was commissioned by the local government and carried out by the sculptor Lajos Bíró. Furthermore, there is a relief of Calvin and Zwingli on the facade of Debrecen College, by the main entrance. Finally, there is a bust of Calvin in the courtyard of the Calvin House in Eger, commissioned by the local congregation. It is the work of the artist László Kutas, and it was dedicated in December of 2000. A replica of this bust can be found in Sopron, Piliscsaba and in the middle school of Lónyai street in Budapest.

E.g. squares in Budapest, V., VIII. and IX. district, Debrecen, Szeged, Nyíregyháza, Kecskemét, Hajdúböszörmény, Hódmezővásárhely, Berettyóújfalu, Bojt, Demecser, Hajdúszoboszló, Vezseny, Veresegyház, Istvándi, Izsák, Kunmadaras, Kunszentmiklós, Mezőberény, Monor, Nagykőrös, Nyírmada, Pécel, Sáregres, Szabadszállás, Szekszárd, Szikszó, Tószeg-Tisza; streets in Budapest, III. and IV. district, Abony, Albertirsa, Békéscsaba, Békésszentandrás, Csákvár, Gyömrő, Gyula, Miskolc, Pécs, Makó, Karcag, Ócsa, Tiszavasvári, Siklós-Máriagyüd, Vác, Veresegyház; alleys in Óbuda, Ócsa.

E.g. in Transylvania there  only remain a street in Arad, Nagyvárad (Oradea), Érmihályfalva (Valea Lui Mihai), and both a street and square in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe).