# {104.} The Churches and Religious Life

The Churches of the various denominations played a very important role in the life of the Hungarian villages because they influenced to a considerable degree the moral norms, customs, and the shaping of family life. The abandonment of paganism took place in the 10th and 11th centuries, and the Hungarians uniformly followed the Catholic religion till the first half of the 16th century, when the decisive majority became Protestant. The vigorous Counter-Reformation of the 17th century, in which the majority of the landed nobility participated alongside the priests, changed the situation considerably. The theory of Cuius regio, eius religio succeeded to a great extent, and Catholicism meant an advantage for the native population as well as to the new inhabitants who came to settle in Hungary. Accordingly, from the 18th century on, the majority of Hungary’s population has been Catholic.

38. Maidens of Mary, ready for procession
Mezőkövesd

39. Procession for blessing the wheat
Nádújfalu, Heves County

Sixty-two per cent of the entire population was Catholic in the first half of the century, above all in Transdanubia and in the northern part of the country. The 22 per cent that were Reformed Presbyterians lived primarily in areas east of the Tisza, while the 6 per cent that were Lutherans lived in various parts of the country. The majority of the {105.} Hungarians of Transylvania belonged to the various Protestant sects although in large and unbroken Hungarian areas (Csíkszék) we can find only Catholics. In the villages of mixed religion, the members of different denominations were separate from each other in customs and often in costumes and eating habits. The Church usually prohibited, or at least disapproved of, marriages between them.

The organization of the Church influenced intellectual life, and in fact almost completely defined it through the centuries. This can be explained by the fact that the Church maintained the schools from the lowest to the highest grades, and that the world view of the Church asserted itself through these. However, the Church–in Hungary primarily the Catholic Church–was also a secular power that possessed landed property. Thus, the Catholic Church of Hungary, together with the various monastic orders, held, even half a century ago, 10 per cent of all the arable land, in addition to the land grants of the parish parsons. Thus the Church, as landlord, exploited its agricultural workers in the way we have seen above, just as did the secular owners of landed estates.

Generally the Churches collected a tax, a tithe, from their members. The amount of this changed from time to time by area or even by village. It consisted partly of money, partly of contributions in kind, which generally had to be paid in the autumn, after harvesting. Besides this, they collected alms-boy contributions every Sunday, part of which, in the case of Catholics, was due to the Pope as “Peter’s pence”. The priest was paid a fixed amount of surplice fee to carry out priestly functions such as baptism, marrying and burial.

The village organization of the Catholic church was directed centrally. The parson was appointed by the bishop, while the president of the Church Council was elected locally by the most prosperous and most devout members of the Church. The sexton and sacristan helped the parson to prepare the mass, kept the church clean, and usually also saw to bellringing and delivering messages. They enjoyed a predetermined payment, earlier primarily in kind, and got a special remuneration for tolling the bell for the dead.

40. Interior of a Calvinist church
Szenna, Somogy County

41. In church
Vista, former Kolozs County

{106.} The village organization of the Protestant Churches is more democratic, and the minister is elected by the congregation. In the past, if for some reason he proved unsatisfactory, the congregation could even send him away. The church warden stood at the head of the presbytery and counted as the secular head of the local congregation. He handled the money of the church and when necessary, gave an account to the presbytery. The sexton was partly the minister’s substitute, and partly his helper during the sacrament of Holy Communion, at which the {107.} more prosperous church members successively offered the wine and bread. The bell ringer, as a permanent and paid employee, did all the chores.

Attending Sunday service was made obligatory by the consensus of Church and village opinion. The women stayed at home in the morning so that they could prepare dinner on time, and in the afternoon the men stayed so that they could feed the animals. Only the old, particularly elderly old women who had free time, participated in weekday worship. After the Sunday service the men stayed together for a while in front of the church to discuss the latest news and events. At such time the village drummer announced decrees of common interest.

The function of the Church was to stand by the three major functions of life and in due fashion fulfil their ceremonies. Essentially, it admitted the infant into the Church with baptism, it blessed the relationship of two people in marriage, and accompanied the dead on the last trip to the cemetery. It noted all this in the register, which the Hungarian churches kept from the 17th century, but more generally only from the 18th century. The state took over the function of registering from the end of the last century and, although the churches continued to record, the state authorities did not accept these records.

42. Sunday, after church
Szék, former Szolnok-Doboka County

{108.} The Church also played an important role in the matter of morals. Thus, it punished severely those who wore clothes unsuited for public morals as interpreted by the Church, who created a disturbance, drank, swore, or fornicated. They were put on the pillory, or condemned to begging the Church’s pardon, at which time they had to confess their sins in front of the entire congregation and promise to change for the better.

Church music affected folk music from the Middle Ages on. Examples of the literature of sermons appear in the tales and myths of the peasants. The Churches were also the originators and disseminators of certain dramatic plays of religious content.