Forgotten Reformations:Eastern Europe

NOTE: This page is still very much under construction - but this initial collection of links and information has been put on my site to give you a start in researching this significant - but largely forgotten period of Reformation history. If you can add to it, your suggestions and contributions of resources on these subjects are most welcome.

The forgotten Reformations took place in Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary and Czech-Slovkia (Bohemia) - though present day boundaries are different than in Reformation times.Though initially quite successful, these largely Calvinist reformations were overwhelmed by the Counter-Reformation and the Turkish invasions.

• Poland: Cracow
  The Reformation in Poland From Philip Schaff
  . Fugitive Bohemian Brethren, or Hussites, and the writings of the German Reformers, started the movement in Poland. King Sigismund Augustus (1548-72) favored it, and corresponded with Calvin. The most distinguished Protestant of that country was Jan Laski, or John a Lasco, a Calvinist, who fled from Poland for his faith, was called back by the Protestant nobility, aided by several friends, translated the Bible, and labored for the union of the Reformed and Lutherans (d. 1560). A compromise between the two parties was effected by the general synod of Sendomir (Consensus Sendomiriensis), in 1570; but subsequently internal dissensions, the increase of Socinianism, and the efforts of the Jesuits, greatly interfered with the prosperity of Protestantism in that country. The German provinces now belonging to Russia; Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia, opened likewise the door to the Reformation, and adopted the Augsburg Confession.
• Bohemia: Prague
  The Reformation in Bohemia( From Philip Schaff) was thoroughly prepared by the labors of John Hus and Jerome of Prague, who were burned at the stake as heretics by order of the Council of Constance (the one July 6, 1415, the other May 30, 1416), but left a large number of followers, especially in the Czech or Slavic portion of the population. The wars which followed would have resulted in the triumph of the Hussites, if they had not been broken up by internal dissensions between the Calixtines, the Utraquists, and Taborites. From their remnants arose the "Unitas Fratrum," or the "Bohemian Brethren." They endeavored to reproduce the simplicity and purity of the apostolic church, and were in fraternal alliance with the Waldenses. Notwithstanding their violent persecution, they perpetuated themselves in Bohemia and Moravia. When the Reformation broke out, they sent several deputations to Luther; and many of them embraced the doctrines of the Augsburg Confession, but the majority passed to the Reformed or Calvinistic communion. During the reign of Maximilian II., there was a fair prospect of the conversion of the whole Bohemian nation; but the bloody Thirty Years' War (which began in Prague, 1618), and the counter-Reformation of the Jesuits, crushed Protestantism, and turned Bohemia into a wilderness. A Jesuit named Anton Koniasch (1637) boasted that he had burned over sixty thousand Bohemian books, mostly Bibles. The Bohemian Brethren who had fled to Moravia became, under Count Zinzendorf's care, the nucleus of the Moravian Church (1722), which continues to this day one of the smallest but most active, devoted, and useful among evangelical denominations. But even in Bohemia Protestantism could not be utterly annihilated, and began to raise its feeble head when the emperor, Joseph II., issued the famous Edict of Toleration, Oct. 29, 1781. The recent revival of Czech patriotism and literature came to its aid. The fifth centenary of Hus was celebrated in Prague, 1869, and his works and letters were published. In 1880 there were about fifty Reformed congregations in Bohemia, and thirty in Moravia, holding to the Second Helvetic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism. The number of Lutheran congregations is smaller, and mostly confined to the German part of the population.
• Hungary: Budapest, Debrecen
  The Reformation in Hungary( From Philip Schaff). This country was first brought into contact with the Reform movement by disciples of Luther and Melanchthon, who had studied at Wittenberg, after 1524. Ferdinand I. granted to some magnates and cities liberty and worship, and Maximilian II. (1564-76) increased it. The synod of Erdod, in 1545, organized the Lutheran, and the synod of Czenger, in 1557, the Reformed Church. The German settlers mostly adopted the Augsburg Confession; the national Magyars, the Helvetic. Rudolph II. having suppressed religious liberty, Prince Stephen Bocskaj of Transylvania, strengthened by his alliance with the Turks, reconquered by force of arms (1606) full toleration for the Lutherans and Calvinists in Hungary and Transylvania, which under his successors, Bethlen Gabor and George Rakoczy I., was confirmed by the treaties of Nikolsburg (1622) and Limmz (1645). In Transylvania, Socinianismn also found a refuge, and has maintained itself to this day.

Towards Reformation in Romania Josef Tson, East-West Church & Ministry Report, 1 (Spring 1993)
The Hungarian Protestant Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Under the Ottoman Impact Alexander Sandor Unghvary Slovakia (1526 - 1740): The Turkish Menace and Confessional struggles
Hungarian Reformed Church in the United States and Canada
Links to History of Austrio-Hungary
Dialogue in debrecen By Barbara Chaapel

Since the Reformation brought Calvinism to Hungary and the Thirty-Years War (1618–1648) established Debrecen as a fortress of the Reformed faith, Hungary’s second largest city has been known as “The Hungarian Geneva.”

Calvinism gave Debrecen its first printing house, established in 1561 to publish works that buttressed Reformation theology. And in 1538, Protestants founded the College of Debrecen, later to become the Protestant College of Eastern Europe, famous for educating ministers and teachers for Reformed churches in Eastern Europe. That college is now the theological faculty of the University of Debrecen, and in 1988 its then-dean Dr. Botond Gaal led the celebration of its 450th anniversary.

From his office in Princeton, where he spent the fall as a member of the Center of Theological Inquiry (CTI), Gaal was proud to talk about the theological faculty from which he graduated and where he is now professor of Christian dogmatics. “My country sided with the Calvinist part of the Reformation because of the high view those Reformers had of education,” he explained. “We needed schools, and the Reformers began them, including the College of Debrecen. At the end of the sixteenth century, more than 95% of our population was Protestant.”

A bloody Counter Reformation in Hungary changed the balance in favor of Catholicism, but today’s smaller number of Hungarian Protestants are mostly Reformed.

Henry Bogdan: From Warsaw To Sofia in particular Chapter 5: The Age of Ruptures:14th--16th Centuries and Chapter 6: Eastern Europe of the Habsburgs, the Turks and Russia
Reformation Literature and the National Consciousness of Transylvanian Hungarians, Saxons, and Rumanians by LOUIS J. ELTETO
Catholic Encyclopedia: John Laski Uncle - opponent of Prots
Catholic Encylopedia: Nicolaus Oláh
Historical Atlas of Hungary
Catholic Encyclopedia: the Reformation
E. Hungary and Transylvania The Reformation was spread in Hungary by Hungarians who had studied at Wittenberg and had there embraced Lutheranism. In 1525 stringent laws were passed against the adherents of the heretical doctrines, but their numbers continued to increase, especially among the nobility, who wished to confiscate the ecclesiastical property, and in the free cities of the kingdom. Turkish victories and conquest and the war between Ferdinand of Austria and John Zapolya favoured the reformers. In addition to the Lutherans there were soon followers of Zwingli and Calvin in the country. Five Lutheran towns in Upper Hungary accepted the Augsburg Confession. Calvinism, however, gradually won the upper hand, although the domestic disputes between the reforming sects by no means ceased. In Transylvania merchants from Hermannstadt, who had become acquainted with Luther's heresy at Peipzig, spread the Reformation after 1521. Notwithstanding the persecution of the Reformers, a Lutheran school was started at Hermannstadt, and the nobility endeavoured to use the Reformation as a means of confiscating the property of the clergy. In 1529 the regular orders and the most vigorous champions of the Church were driven from the town. At Kronstadt the Lutheran preacher Johann Honter gained the ascendency in 1534, the Mass being abolished and Divine service organized after the Lutheran model. At a synod held iin 1544 the Saxon nation in Transylvania decided in favour of the Augsburg Confession, while the rural Magyars accepted Calvinism. At the Diet of Klausenburg in 1556 general religious freedom was granted and the ecclesiastical property confiscated for the defence of the country and the erection of Lutheran schools. Among the supporters of the Reformation far-reaching divisions prevailed. Besides the Lutherans, there were Unitarians (Socinians) and Anabaptists, and each of these sects waged war against the others. A Catholic minority survived among the Greek Walachians.

F. Poland, Livonia, and Courland

Poles learned of the Reformation through some young students from Wittenberg and through the Bohemian and Moravian Brethren. Archbishop Laski of Gnesen and King Sigismund I (1501-48) energetically opposed the spread of heretical doctrines. However, the supporters of the Reformation succeeded in winning recruits at the University of Cracow, at Posen, and at Dantzig. From Dantzig the Reformation spread to Thorn and Elbing, and certain nobles favoured the new doctrines. Under the rule of the weak Sigismund II (1548-72) there were in Poland, besides the Lutherans and the Bohemian Brethren, Zwinglians, Calvinists, and Socinians. Prince Radziwill and John Laski favoured Calvinism, and the Bible was translated into Polish in accordance with the views of this party in 1563. Despite the efforts of the papal nuncio, Aloisius Lippomano (1556-58) free practice of religion was secretly granted in the aforementioned three cities, and the nobility were allowed to hold private religious services in their houses. The different Reformed sects fought among one another,In Livonia and Courland, the territories of the Teutonic Order, the course of the Reformation was the same as in the other territory of the Order, Prussia. Commander Gotthard Kettler of Courland embraced the Augsburg Confession, and converted the land into a secular hereditary duchy, tributary to Poland. In Livonia Commander Walter of Plettenberg strove to foster Lutheranism, which had been accepted at Riga, Dorpat, and Reval since 1523, hoping thus to make himself independent of the Archbishop of Riga. When Margrave William of Brandenburg became Archbishop of Riga in 1539, Lutheranism rapidly obtained exclusive sway in Livonia.

Johann Laski (Jan a Lasco) Click on flag for English version


• New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia: Lasco, Johannes (Jan Laski) Johannes Laski (Jan a Lasco), Polish reformer: a Short biography
  
  

  Johannes a Lasco in East Friesland. The Career of a Reformer. By Henning P. Jürgens. (Published in German)

  This new biography follows the activities of Polish nobleman, humanist, Reformer and theologian Johannes a Lasco (Jan Laski,1499-1560) in East Friesland. The reformer’s career spanned humanism and the Reformation in Poland, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. Jürgens begins his analysis with a Lasco’s education, his diplomatic and ecclesiastical activities in Hungary and Poland, his humanist sympathies in Basel and Poland and his turn towards the Reformation. Attention focuses on contacts to Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose library a Lasco purchased, as well as his participation in the Hungarian succession conflict and his encounters with Melanchthon and Albert Hardenberg. A Lasco’s efforts to define the East Frisian Reformed Church against Anabaptists and Catholics and to unify its organization and theology are examined. His negotiations between the developing confessions are analyzed theologically and politically from his energetic correspondence with leading contemporary theologians, organized for the first time here in an appendix. The book concludes with the Interim and a Lasco’s 1549 dismissal as East Frisian Superintendent. 2002. VIII, 428 pages (Spätmittelalter und Reformation Neue Reihe 18). ISBN 3-16-147754-5 cloth EURO 69.00

• New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia
• New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia: Hungary
  István Lázár: HUNGARY - A Brief History Chapter 8
  Articles on History of Hungary
  16th Century of Hungarian Protestantism
  Our Church: the Reformed Church in Hungary
  History of the Reformed Church in Hungary
  Hungary RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
  Hungary Reign of Ulaszlo II and Louis II
  Hungary Partition of Hungary
  Hungary End of the Partition
  World History at KMLA: Eastern Europe
  including The Reformation
  The Reformation in Hungary
  Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Poland
  
  • Advanced Book Exchange. For assistance in getting the "gist" of German, French, Spanish, Italian sites, etc, you can use Free Translation.com or Alta Vista's Babelfish.

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