Henry A. Fischer
(The
Seniorat (Church District) of Tolna, Baranya and Somogy of the
Lutheran Church in Hungary includes Hungarian, Slovak and German-speaking
congregations. What follows addresses only the early development of the
German-speaking congregations in Swabian Turkey whose members would later be
identified as Danube Swabians.)
In 1718,
the large-scale immigration of Evangelical Lutherans from Germany into Tolna
County began. Many of these settlers came from Württemberg and the Pfalz, but the
major portion came from Hessen-Darmstadt. Hieronymous Schwarzwalder, who
accompanied the colonists, served as the pastor in Varsád beginning in 1718.
He was ordained in Kremnitz in Upper Hungary (Slovakia) on September 29, 1718 by
Daniel Krmann, who was the only remaining Lutheran Superintendent (bishop) who was
still in office and not in prison. The Varsád congregation was located on the land
holdings of the Székely family who were Calvinists. At the founding of the
settlement there were also Hungarian Calvinists and Roman Catholics but they left
shortly afterwards and Varsád would become a totally German village. The first
settlers in Varsád came from Württemberg. They were only the vanguard. Like the
stars in the night sky after 1718-1719, here and there throughout Tolna County,
Lutheran congregations came into being under the leadership of a pastor or Levite
Lehrer (a teacher who also had theological training. In the beginning there
were only simple services of worship consisting of hymns, scripture reading, prayers
and the reading of sermons if no one was prepared to preach in the absence of a
pastor or teacher.
Shortly
afterwards, in 1718-1719 a congregation was formed in Kismányok consisting of
settlers from Württemberg under the leadership of an ordained pastor named Jeremias
Walter. On his arrival from Germany, Count Wenceslaus Zinzendorf the Minister of
Finance in Vienna who owned the estate on which the village was located officially
appointed him to his pastorate. According to several sources this pastor Walter
also served the newly formed congregation in Izmény in 1720. This village was part
of the domains of Count Apar. Walter appears to have come from either Württemberg
or Hesse. In 1744 the congregation in Izmény became and affiliate of Kismányok
after their young pastor, Stephen Bárány and his family were banished and driven out
of the village by County troopers under the leadership of County Administration and
Roman Catholic church officials.
Colonists
from the Vogelsberg District from Upper Hesse came to Felsönána in 1721 and
founded a Lutheran congregation. These settlers came from the domains of Freiherr
Riedesel. Other emigrants from Hessen-Kassel and Hessen-Nassau joined them in the
following spring. The congregation became an affiliate of Varsád at the outset but
after 1724 was served by the pastor in nearby Kistormás. The first known teacher in
the village was Georg Sutter in 1730, who had been preceded by one of the settlers
who acted in this capacity and led in worship until a trained teacher could be
obtained. This was typical in most of the congregations and the men did so secretly
and were called “emergency teachers.” Their primary task was to teach the children
in preparation for confirmation which meant a knowledge of reading, writing and
Scripture and also served as the lay leader and preacher in the congregation.
In
1722-1724, with the full consent of Emperor Charles VI a Lutheran congregation was
formed in Mucsfa. The inhabitants of this village had their origins in the
Odenwald, now part of Hesse. Because of their poverty they were unable to establish
regular church life on their own and united with Izmény at first and then later with
Kismányok. The first teacher we can identify with certainty was Johann Thomas who
began to serve in 1733.
In 1722 a
very important event took place that affected the majority of the Lutheran
congregations in the Tolna. General Count Claudius Florimundus de Mercy of Argentau
purchased the largest domain in Tolna County. He was the governor of the Banat and
president of the Commission for Settlement and Colonization at Temesvár. His land
holdings in Tolna County stretched from Paulsdorf (Pálfa) in the north to Abtsdorf
(Bátaapáti) in the south along the border with the Baranya. In this settlement area
he carried out an ambitious, innovative and effective colonization policy in which
he protected and defended the religious rights of his subjects as far as it was
possible for him to do so. At the time of his purchase the Lutheran congregations
in Varsád, Felsönána, Kismányok, Izmény and Mucsfa had already been established.
His
policies were introduced and implemented by his cousin, Count Anton Ignaz de Mercy
who was his designated heir. Following the death of this younger de Mercy on
January 22, 1767 his son, Count Claudius Florimundus de Mercy II who later served as
the Habsburg ambassador in Paris and London succeeded him. He sold the family
holdings in Tolna County in 1773 to Count Georg Apponyi for over 700,000 Gulden.
The Mercy holdings had included the estates of Count Zinzendorf, Baron Schilson and
the Székely family. From 1722-1772 the Mercys were the most powerful and wealthiest
landowners in Tolna County with all of the special privileges of a Hungarian noble
and the right of the sword. (They had the power of life and death over their
subjects).
The Mercys
proved to be effective defenders and protectors of their Lutheran subjects in the
face of the attempts to persecute them on the part of the County Administration that
was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and included their higher clergy. The fate of the
future Lutheran Seniorat would have been different on the basis of any kind
of human judgement and especially in light of the “quiet suppression” under Empress
Maria Theresia had the Mercys not been the landlords and protectors of numerous
Lutheran congregations who were the seed out of which the future Church District
would sprout.
Count de
Mercy carried out public relation activities in Hesse to recruit settlers in his
role as president of the Colonization Commission for the Banat that would produce
results other than those the Emperor had intended. His own domain in Tolna County
would be the chief beneficiary of his publicity efforts. For this purpose he sent
his authorized commissioner Captain Tobias Vátzy to Vienna to persuade immigrants
who were bound for the Banat to choose to settle on Count de Mercy’s domains in
Tolna County instead. According to notes left behind by pastor Johann Balassa of
Sárszentlörinc, Count de Mercy received an order for an audience with the Emperor in
Vienna in which he was reprimanded for his manipulation of the Banat bound settlers
while also charging him with having accepted Lutheran settlers on his estates and
supported them in their heresy. Count de Mercy did not allow any of this to
influence him in any way and proceeded with his colonization project in the Tolna as
before. From 1721-1724 we can speak of a massive emigration as more Lutherans
sought refuge and land with Count de Mercy on his domain.
In the
year 1722, Kalaznó was founded by Lutheran settlers arriving from Upper Hesse
and quickly joined themselves as a daughter congregation of Varsád in 1724, where at
the time, Karl Johann Reichard was the pastor. Only recently, he had been driven
out of the Banat by the Jesuits and had become a fugitive from the law. He had
served two Lutheran congregations made up of Odenwalders from Hesse who had settled
in Langenfeld and Petrilowia in 1718 as well as the neighbouring settlements of
Orawitza, Russowa, Haversdorf and Saalhausen. He had done so under the protection
and official appointment of Count de Mercy. These settlements were in the vicinity
of Weisskirchen and close to the frontiers with Turkish occupied Serbia. The
Jesuits in Temesvár made the young pastor’s presence and activities known to the
Court in Vienna and he was ordered banished. It was only through the Count’s
assistance that he was able to escape imprisonment and made his way to Varsád where
the Count placed him in the pastorate there. In the following months a trickle of
Odenwalders, some eighty-five persons arrived in small family groups and rejoined
him in order to escape conversion. All of these early Lutheran settlements in the
Banat were destroyed by the later Turkish incursions into the area and the
population was massacred or carried off into slavery.
The
congregation in Abtsdorf (Bátaapáti) was already founded in 1724 under the
Letters Patent they had been granted by the Emperor Charles. Many of them visited
Kismányok for pastoral services and the names of their families can be found in
those church records and in the same year they officially became affiliated with
that congregation.
Kalaznó
belonged to the land holdings of Count de Mercy centred at Högyész and was settled
by colonists from Upper Hesse. According to the church archives the village had a
Bethaus (prayer house) and teacher from the beginning of the settlement. In
1733, the bishop of Pécs sought to establish a Roman Catholic parish in Varsád
and Kalaznó for Magyar Roman Catholics. This indicates that at the time of the
coming of the German settlers there were still numerous Hungarians in the area. It
was only later that Kalaznó would become entirely German in terms of its
inhabitants. In 1725, Michael Reulein became the resident teacher.
In 1719,
the Lutheran congregation in Györköny was established. In that same year,
Georg Bárány organized the congregation in Gyönk and turned it over to Stephen Denes
and went to serve the mixed language Magyar and German congregation in Györköny.
Daniel Krmann, the Lutheran bishop of Upper Hungary appointed Georg Bárány the
Senior (Dean) of the Tolna congregations on January 27, 1720 to give leadership to
the growing fledgling congregations.
Relationships between the two nationalities broke down in Györköny and Bárány
requested approval from Count de Mercy to establish a Hungarian Lutheran settlement
on the puszta (prairie) at Sárszentlörinc. On his approval, Bárány
and the Hungarian families left and established what would become the centre of
Lutheranism and where he would lead the Church District in the turbulent decades
ahead. A Lutheran congregation was also formed in Nagyszekély and associated
themselves with Bárány’s parish.
On May 9,
1724 in the evening, between seven and eight o’clock the wagons of Count de Mercy
arrived at Tolna-on-the-Danube to pick up a small group of Lutheran settlers and
dropped them off in the tall grass of the puszta of Tormash (Kistormás).
The colonists came from the vicinity of Wiesbaden. The tall grass was their
mattress and God’s free sky their only cover. A pastor, Johann Nicolaus Tonsor
(Latin for Schneider) accompanied the group. He was born in Wallau in the Wiesbaden
area on November 2, 1692. He was ordained at Wertheim-an-Main on their way to
Hungary. In their emigrant train there was also a teacher along with his family,
Johann Wolfgang Friedrich from Idstein by Wiesbaden. When the congregation
organized it numbered about sixty families. At the same time other German settlers
moved into Kölesd, which adjoined Kistormás and resided among the Magyar Lutherans
who were living there.
In
Mucsi, owned by Count Zinzendorf, a small Lutheran “daughter” congregation was
established in 1718. The pastor in Bikács, Andreas Reiner, attests to this in a
document he presented to the Church District in assembly. This congregation
disappeared in the 1730s as most of the Lutherans moved on to other settlements. It
was a basic policy of Count de Mercy to establish settlements with only one
religious confession and nationality to avoid conflict if at all possible.
Between
1718-1724 there were eleven Lutheran congregations established on the domains of
Count de Mercy in Tolna County of which nine were German-speaking and consisted of
settlers from southwest Germany as well as Western Hungary in terms of the
Heidebauern who had established Györköny.
But
Lutheran congregations also emerged in settlements belonging to other nobles and
private landlords. In particular there were: Kun, Perczel and Schilson. The Kun
estate included Majós, which was apparently settled by Hessians prior to 1720
who formed a Lutheran congregation shortly after their arrival. Georg Bárány,
however, indicates an earlier arrival of German settlers under the leadership of
Friedrich Samuel Bertram of Magdeburg who was their pastor. He was banished from
the County and the members of the congregation followed him into exile but their
destination is unknown. Several pastors attempted to serve in Majós but all of them
were imprisoned, banished or expelled from the County. Their Bethaus was
boarded up and all forms of worship were forbidden in the village. The congregation
was placed under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic clergy in Bonyhád but the
vast majority of the members of the congregation went to Kismányok for pastoral
services along with the other orphaned Lutheran congregations in the area.
Congregational life by the Lutherans was established in Bonyhád between
1720-1724 on the Perczel estates. Many families from Württemberg settled here and
were the backbone of the congregation that was not permitted to have a school or
teacher but managed to operate a clandestine one. Some of the families sent their
children to the school in Majós which was close by. In terms of church jurisdiction
they were placed under the authority of the local Roman Catholic priest to whom they
had to pay their tithes and fees along with the Hungarian Calvinists in the town.
The congregation would undergo constant pressure and restrictions well into the 19th
century even after the Edict of Toleration had been published and enacted.
The
village of Hidas, which now belongs to Baranya County, was on the estates
owned by Franz Kun who settled some German colonists from Hesse and Württemberg in
1720. The majority of them were Lutherans but there were also a sizeable number of
Reformed. The Lutherans formally organized themselves in 1730 with the landlord’s
permission. They associated themselves with the Kismányok parish. During the time
of Bishop Berény of Pécs the congregation experienced intensive persecution along
with the Lutherans in Bonyhád.
In
Cikó,
where a Cistercian Abbey was located, a small Lutheran congregation of some thirty
families came into existence in 1719. At first it related to the congregation in
Majós when it had a pastor and then later to Kismányok when he was banished. The
village was on the lands of Baron Schilson, which was later sold to the Perczels.
In 1730, the Lutherans built a Bethaus and they shared a common bell with the
Roman Catholics. According to Roman Catholic records, the two groups built the
Bethaus jointly. In 1723 the Lutheran teacher in the village was Kaspar Faust.
During the episcopate of Bishop Berény due to the pressures exerted against them, to
all intents and purposes the congregation was wiped out, with a sizeable number of
the families moving to Gyönk where they laid the groundwork for a large future
congregation while others moved to nearby Zsibrik where another small congregation
was established. They built a Bethaus and engaged a teacher but were placed
under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic priest in Cikó. This valiant little
congregation experienced great difficulties throughout the reign of Maria Theresia
at the hands of the Bishop of Pécs.
In
response to the colonization project of the Perczel family both Lutheran and
Reformed settlers came to Mórágy in 1719-1720. The Lutherans associated
themselves with the congregation in Kismányok and a teacher by the name of Triebach
was working there, but their numbers were small in terms of the Reformed and were
gradually absorbed into their congregation. Both groups had their origins in Hesse
where these kinds of unions between the confessions on a local level had become
common in many villages back home and was not considered to be out of the ordinary.
Kéty
was another case in point. This Lutheran congregation established in 1732 had a
significant number of Reformed members. Sixty-five years later, eighty-six of the
members still registered themselves as being Reformed. Their settlement contract
with Baron Schilson dates from May 30, 1732. The congregation was placed under the
jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic priest in Zomba and suffered a great deal at the
hands of the fiercely catholic Bene family by the restrictions imposed upon them.
Their Bethaus was confiscated by the Bene family and converted into a stable
and their two teachers: Matthias Lämle and Peter Ernst were driven out of the
community.
Paks-on-the-Danube
was located on the land holdings of the Rudnyanszky family. The church records of
the Roman Catholic church that begin in 1720 present a colourful confessional
picture with Calvinist Hungarians, Orthodox Serbs, Lutheran Slovaks and Lutheran
Germans as well as Roman Catholics of various nationalities. The last mentioned
group among the Lutherans were primarily Heidebauern from Weisselburg County
(Moson). Their numbers increased with the arrival of German Lutherans from various
Germans principalities. Although they formed a Lutheran congregation it was not
allowed to function nor were they permitted to have a school and teacher. This was
not a new experience for the Heidebauern who had existed in this manner for over one
hundred years and continued to give expression to their faith as household
assemblies in which the children were also taught scripture and the catechism. They
were obliged to pay their tithes to the Roman Catholic priest and if they sought the
services of a pastor of their own confession they also had to pay whatever fee was
deemed appropriate to the priest as well.
On the
Rudnyanszky estate, the village of Bikács was settled in the early 1720s
although it was officially founded in 1736 in order to avoid paying some County
taxes. The settlers were Heidebauern from Moson County who began settling in the
community on and off since 1725. On forming a Lutheran congregation they associated
themselves with the congregation in Györköny but met constant resistance from the
Roman Catholic authorities in their efforts to develop any form of church life in
the village. Their first teacher, Stephen Salamon came from Tet in Raab (Györ)
County and he served from 1727-1753 when he was banished and the congregation was
placed under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic priest in Kajdács.
The
village of Zomba was situated on the estates of the Orthodox Monasterly
family and later the Vitkovics heirs and was settled by Hungarian and German
Lutherans. In 1723 a Lutheran congregation was established and developed a
relationship with the Majós congregation before 1726. When the pastor was
expelled in 1729 they were left to fend for themselves. It was only later that they
began to experience real difficulties when Zomba was purchased by the Döry family
who were fiercely anti-Protestant and ordered their Bethaus confiscated and
locked and banished their German and Hungarian teachers. The German Lutherans left
en masse after 1735 and settled in Mekényes in the Baranya, while their Hungarian
co-religionists left to establish Oroshaza. As the last teacher noted, “It is to
the great honour of our German and Hungarian forebears that they sooner left house,
land and home than to forfeit their faith and church.”
There was
another Lutheran congregation on the Monastery and later Döry estates at Szárázd.
The congregational archives indicate that the congregation was formed in 1737 and
affiliated itself with the congregation in Gyönk. The first settlers came to escape
the fanatic Bene family leaving Kéty 1736-1737. But here they were to suffer even
more under the Roman Catholic priest in Sagetal. An “underground emergency teacher”
served here up until the time of the Edict of Toleration and by then the local Roman
Catholics had left and the village had become entirely ethnic German and Lutheran.
In nearby
Murga, where the landowners were Stephen and Nicolaus Jeszenszky, both ethnic
German Roman Catholics and Lutherans settled in the village in 1745. The Lutherans
were not permitted to engage in any kind of organized church life and were placed
under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic priest in Zomba. Their landlords
handled both groups so badly that together they petitioned for redress to the
Empress Maria Theresia from the exploitation and oppression they suffered at their
hands. Although the Lutherans were not allowed to have a teacher, one of the local
tradesmen acted as one secretly until the Edict of Toleration.
During the
early 1730s Hessian Lutherans arrived and settled in Keszöhigkút and formed a
congregation related to the Gyönk parish. The Hessian Lutheran families in
Nagyszekély left their town when they were not allowed to build a Bethaus by
their landlord and moved on to Udvari among German Roman Catholics where they formed
a Lutheran congregation but were placed under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic
parish of Szaáadát. The two congregations were both served by “emergency teachers”
until the Edict of Toleration. Daughter churches would emerge in the area at the
end of the 18th century but that goes beyond our present survey of the
early development.
The
story would be slightly different in Somogy County. Numerous Hungarian and
Slovak congregations came into existence during this period but we will focus only
on those that were German-speaking. Unlike the situation in Tolna County, in Somogy
County the German Lutherans who settled there did not come directly from Germany but
had first settled in the Tolna and were usually the first generation to be born in
Hungary. In terms of the settlements themselves there are only two exceptions. For
that reason the others would be looked upon as secondary settlements by historians
and researchers.
Felsö
Mocsolád is considered by many to be the first, with Hessian Lutherans arriving
there as early as 1725 and they too were served by the teacher: Kaspar Faust who we
first met in the Tolna. In the following years there was a steady stream of
Reformed settlers who arrived there. Most of them were Hungarian who eventually
formed the majority and the village lost both its German and Lutheran character by
the end of the 18th century.
To the
north, on the estates of the Protestant Berzsenyi, Antal and Benko families the
village of Kötcse was founded by: five Hungarian Roman Catholic families,
twelve Hungarian Calvinist families, forty-seven German Lutheran families and seven
German Reformed families. The Germans were of Hessian origin having embarked for
Hungary from Regensburg in the spring of 1723. The Church District accepted the
congregation in 1725 when it was being served by an “emergency teacher” until a
Levite Lehrer was available. In 1734 Dominik Haas who had been born in
the Tolna arrived to serve them in that capacity and was succeeded in 1740 by
Michael Harmonia who was secretly ordained by Georg Bárány. In 1745 Martin Biró von
Padámy the bishop of Veszpém took action against the congregation. On the night of
December 15, 1745 a mob of peasants led by the priest in Karad stormed the village,
raided and ransacked the houses of the Lutherans and Reformed and confiscated all
bibles and hymnbooks and devotional literature under the direction of the High Court
Judge Johann Rosty accompanied by County troops. A huge bonfire was built in front
of the Bethaus that had only recently been built and the books were burned
and the judge read a decree outlawing any form of Lutheran worship or household
assemblies and placed the congregation under the jurisdiction of the priest in Karad.
He then ordered that the Bethaus be put to the torch by the unruly mob.
Michael Harmonia and leaders of the congregation were whipped and he was dragged off
to the episcopal dungeons in Veszprem, was under torture, he converted to Roman
Catholicism. The congregation went back to its former underground existence under
the leadership of several emergency teachers until the publication of the Edict of
Toleration thirty years later.
Some
time after 1730 groups of Hessian and Württemberg Lutherans, who sought to escape
conversion in the Tolna made their way into the hill country of Somogy County and
established new settlements, one of which was Bonnya. The beginnings of this
Lutheran congregation cannot be determined precisely but it is tied to the arrival
of Jakob Becht who had been born in Württenberg, and was the banished Lutheran
underground teacher from Bonyhád who had fled from the authorities who sought to
drive him out of the country. He and his young family arrived in Bonnya on April
11, 1730 and took on the guise of a local farmer while he also secretly served as
the Levite Lehrer. The oldest sons of the Becht family would serve in
that capacity in the life of the village and congregation for the next seven
generations until the expulsion of the Danube Swabian population in 1948.
At about
the same time, the private landowner Johann Nepomuk Hunjady welcomed German families
to settle on his estates at Döröcske. These first settlers came from the
Tolna along with others from Kötcse because land was starting to run out to provide
a livelihood for younger families. The Lutheran congregation was formed in 1758 and
was served by various men as emergency teachers because all of their attempts to
have permission to have a Levite Lehrer were turned down by the
Empress Maria Theresia. They considered themselves affiliated with the Slovak
Lutheran congregation in Tab.
In the mid
1750s, some twenty-five Lutheran families from the Tolna and Baranya settled in Ecsény on the lands of several private landowners. They were unable to form a
congregation of their own and associated themselves with the Slovak congregation in
Tab while officially they were under the jurisdiction of the priest in Barapati.
They were the first of the German-speaking congregations in Somogy County to receive
permission to call a pastor and build a church at the time of the Edict of
Toleration in 1781.
There
were also developments taking place in Baranya County, but only the
congregation in Hidas was able to take root in the first half of the
century. The Bishops of Pécs were determined to nip in the bud any attempts at a
Lutheran presence in the County. It was only in the villages of Tófü and Mekényes
that had formerly belonged to Tolna County that the Lutherans had been able to
establish a bridgehead.
The
congregation in Tófü came into existence in 1719 and later became associated
with the congregation in Kismányok. Later in 1735 it related to the congregation in
Mekényes that was much closer. In 1743 the Bishop of Pécs had the Bethaus
in
both villages destroyed and placed both communities under the jurisdiction of the
priest in Bikal.
From its
inception the congregation in Tófü supported an “emergency teacher.” In 1739 they
chose Philip Dieleberger as their teacher but the Roman Catholic authorities had him
banished and in 1746 we find him listed in the church records in Kismányok as an
ex-teacher. Like the other congregations that managed to survive until the Edict of
Toleration Tófü’s lay leaders held the congregation together and provided personal
models of faithfulness with many of them ending up in prison.
The
beginnings of Lutheran church life in Mekényes can be traced back to 1735.
The first Lutheran settlers came from Zomba and Gyönk in the Tolna because they
could not remain in those communities and practice their faith. The first
settlement took place on April 24, 1735. The names of these colonists indicate that
their origins were in Upper Hesse in the vicinity of Schlitz. At the beginning the
settlers had to suffer much at the hands of the local Serbs who preceded them and
were to be found in most of Baranya. Their landlord was the Eszterházy family that
made no distinctions because they were Lutherans and acted towards them favourably.
In 1737 Mekényes was accorded the rights of an Artikular Church (a law that allowed
for two Lutheran Churches to function in each county of Hungary) and called Franz
Tonsor who was the pastor in Lapafö in Somogy County to be their pastor. He served
from 1737 to 1743. After personal harassment and constant threats he was forcibly
driven out of the village by troops sent by the Bishop of Pécs in 1743 and the Bethaus
was locked and sealed. Mass was celebrated annually in the Bethaus
even thought there was not a single Roman Catholic resident to be found in the
village. The congregation supported a teacher secretly and kept him hidden from the
authorities even though a Roman Catholic teacher had been imposed upon them. This
congregation endured much in the years before the Edict of Toleration.
Ráckozár received its name from its original inhabitants: the
Raizen who
were Serbs and Croats and had settled in the area under Leopold I. They were
semi-nomadic. For that reason the Eszterházys were interested in getting rid of
them and replacing them with seasoned farmers, which meant German settlers. In 1732
a single Lutheran family had settled there. It was only in the mid 1750s when large
numbers of German Lutherans would first arrive. A congregation was formed in 1756
and in the years ahead they faced a constant struggle to gain permission to have a
pastor or teacher even though they sent delegations to petition the Empress Maria
Theresia who turned a deaf ear to their requests. Instead they were placed under
the jurisdiction of the priest in Bikal and their teacher that they had been allowed
to have was driven out of the community and was replaced by a Roman Catholic. None
of the children attended the school. The congregation bribed the priest in Bikal to
turn a blind eye to the fact that an “emergency teacher” was serving in their
community. None of this changed until the Edict of Toleration.
The
Eszterházys also settled German Lutherans from the Tolna among their Roman Catholic
subjects in Gerényes, Nagy Ag, Tékes, Kaposszekcsö, Csikostöttös and Tarrós where Lutheran congregations were quickly formed and were faced with the
same struggle for survival. Again it was the local lay leadership that bore the
brunt of the battle and the emergency teachers who were apprehended and imprisoned.
In light
of all of this, it seems virtually impossible but it is a fact that Lutheran
congregations and communities arose on the estates of Princes of the Church and
other church lands. Such Lutheran settlements were in Alsónána and Györe in the
Tolna and Nagyhajmás in the Baranya. Some time before 1740 Jacob Jany the Abbot of
Bátasék brought Lutheran and Reformed Germans to settle among his Serb subjects in
Alsónána. It was only later in 1751 that the village became part of the state
holdings of the Habsburgs. The village was considered to be a filial of the Roman
Catholic parish of Bátásek and no Lutheran church life was tolerated but clandestine
household services were the norm, while several emergency teachers served here until
the Edict of Toleration.
On the
other hand, Hessian Lutherans settled in Györe under the auspices of the
Bishop of Pécs. The year of the beginnings of the congregation is uncertain but it
became a filial of Zsibrik in 1739 and managed to carry on during this difficult
period.
Nagyhajmás was settled with Roman Catholic Germans and Croats by Count Philip
Ludwig Zinzendorf the abbot of Pécsvarasd, a son of the well-known Count Wenceslaus
Zinzendorf. But unknown to him, among his German colonists there were numerous
Lutherans. The year of settlement is uncertain as well as the point at which the
Lutherans formed a congregation but we do know that they were placed under the
jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic parish of Bikal. There were numerous emergency
teachers who served there, mostly peasant farmers like their neighbours.
In summary
we can verify the existence of at least twenty-nine ethnic German Lutheran
congregations in Swabian Turkey by the end of the 18th century. In
addition there were four congregations with both ethnic German and Hungarian
members. These figures do not include the Hungarian and Slovak congregations. The
seed had been planted. The harvest would come following the Edict of Toleration.
