The Reformation in the Kingdom of Hungary started around 1520 and resulted in the conversion of many Hungarians from Roman Catholicism to a Protestant denomination by the end of the 16th century. Hungary was a Central European regional power in the late 15th century. It was a multiethnic composite monarchy with a significant non-Catholic, predominantly Greek Orthodox, population.
Background
Mass was the central element of devotional life in Western Christianity in the Late Middle Ages. During the ceremony, bread and wine were served to commemorate Jesus's Last Supper before his crucifixion. The 13th-century scholastic theologian, Thomas Aquinas, developed the idea of transubstantiation, stating that the substance of the bread and wine turned into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ during the liturgy of Eucharist. Most faithful believed that prayers for the dead, indulgence grants from church authorities and works of mercy could shorten the afterlife sufferings of sinful people's souls. Laymen's desire to a godly way of life developed a contemplative method of piety around 1400. This Devotio Moderna enabled ordinary people to embrace the clerics' high standards without taking the holy orders. Those who challenged traditional doctrines had to face persecution by church authorities. People were also persecuted for witchcraft especially after late scholastic theologians developed the theoretical basis of the magicians' accusation not only of maleficium but also of idolatry.
An elaborate church organization secured the unity of Western Christianity. Clergymen—secular clerics and monks—were expected to remain celibate (unmarried and chaste). Secular clerics were organized into dioceses, each under a bishop's authority. A diocese included smaller territorial units, known as parishes. The monks lived a regulated life within religious communities, many of which formed international organizations. The pope stood at the head of the church organization, but the co-existence of two, later three, rival lines of popes subverted the traditional order during the Western Schism (from 1378 to 1417). An Oxford theologian, John Wyclif, challenged the traditional ecclesiastic system in the 1370s. He rejected the clergymen's privileges, teaching that all faithful chosen by God had a direct access to an eternal invisible Church. His followers, the Lollards, were outlawed in England, but a professor at the Prague University in Bohemia, Jan Hus, accepted some of Wyclif's views. Hus's sermons demanding a Church reform won popularity among the Czechs, but he was burned at the stake for heresy in 1415. Soon a civil war, colored with ethnic tensions between Czechs and Germans, broke out in Bohemia, which was closed by a compromise in 1485.
From the early 15th century, manuscripts containing Classical Greek philosophers' works were streaming to Catholic Europe from the Byzantine Empire. Humanist men of letters rediscovered Plato and Plato's belief in a reality beyond visible reality diverted them from the clear categories of scholastic theology. The study of Classical texts convinced them that some of the key documents of church history were forgeries or unworthy collections of poor texts. The spread of paper manufacturing and the introduction of printing machines with movable type had a lasting impact on religious life. Bibles translated from Latin to vernaculars were among the first books printed in Germany, Italy, Spain and Bohemia in the 1460s and 1470s. The Dutch humanist Erasmus completed a critical edition of the Latin translation of the New Testament between 1516 and 1519. His translation challenged the textual basis of some Catholic doctrines, including the sacrament of penance and the intercession of saints.
Pope Leo X decided to complete the building of the St. Peter's Basilica and issued indulgence grants to finance the project in 1515. Around the same time, the German theologian Martin Luther was delivering lectures on salvation at the Wittenberg University. His studies convinced him that indulgence grants were useless and summarized his views in his Ninety-five Theses on 31 October 1517. The Pope excommunicated him for heresy, but Luther publicly burned the papal bull in December 1520. Luther rejected the clerics' privileged status and denied that works of merit could influence salvation. Instead, he embraced the idea of sola fide, or justification by faith alone. Luther's co-worker, Philip Melanchthon, summarized the principal theses of Evangelical theology in the Augsburg Confession in 1530. As the new theology gain popularity among the German princes, the principle cuius regio, eius religio ("whose realm, his religion") emerged, emphasizing the princes' right to regulate their subjects' spiritual life. Its application transformed Germany into a mozaic of predominantly Evangelical or Catholic principalities. The principle also established the secular rulers' claim to take responsibility for church administration and to seize church property. In 1529, the princes and free cities sympathizing with Luther's theology staged a protest against the anti-Lutheran decisions adopted at Imperial Diet of Speyer, hence the name "Protestant" for 16th-century religious reformers and their followers.
Luther's theology did not satisfy all reformers' expectations. He never abandoned his devotion to the Eucharist and insisted on the baptism of children. Under the influence of the parish priest, Huldrych Zwingli, who did not regard the Eucharist more than a symbolic act, the city council of Zürich outlawed the Mass in 1525. A Catholic priest's illegitimate son, Heinrich Bullinger, developed an interim formula to conciliate Luther's and Zwingli's views on Eucharist, describing it as a mark of the covenant between God and humankind. The most radical reformers rejected the doctrine of Trinity (the belief in one God consisting of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit). A Navarrese scholar, Michael Servetus, adopted this antitrinitarian theology in the hope of facilitating the union of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In 1534 Anabaptist radicals seized Münster, legalized polygyny and ordered the redistribution of property, but the local bishop crushed the revolt in a year.
A French Protestant refugee who settled in Geneva John Calvin regarded the Anabaptists as fanatics. To explain theological diversity, Calvin developed the idea of double predestination, stating that God had chosen some people for salvation, others for damnation. He rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation and regarded the sacramental bread as a symbol of Christ's heavenly body. Calvin's theology gave rise to the development of a new Protestant denomination, known as Reformed Christianity or Calvinism. Most German states and Scandinavia remained loyal to Luther's teachings, but English, French and Dutch translations of Calvin's works spread his ideas in Scotland, France and the Netherlands. Theological debates brought about the "Era of Confessionalization": the Calvinists summarized their theologies in confessional documents, including the 1563 Heidelberg Catechism. Although Luther and Calvin rejected significant Catholic doctrines, they embraced Catholic demonology and never denied the Devil's authority. As even the most religious individuals were unable to continuously adhere to Christian moral standards, scapegoating was not alien to them. When feeling compunction about their immoral acts or thoughts, pious Christians tended to attribute them to the influence of others, accusing them of witchcraft. The new emphasis on a pure Christianity gave rise to the persecution of elements of popular religion, including amulets or traditional healing practices.
The Reformation movement exerted influence on religious life and theology throughout Europe, but it thrived particularly in regions under a weak central authority. Radical reformers' acts alarmed many people and the newly raised nostalgia for traditional church values gave an impetus to Catholic renewal, culminating in the Counter-Reformation. A courtier turned friar, Ignatius of Loyola, established a highly centralized religious order, the Society of Jesus. Popularly known as Jesuits, the Society's members were rather missionaries or teachers than ordinary priests from the 1550s. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) passed decrees to renew and reinforce Catholic theology and church life. In response to Luther's concept about a sinful humanity unable to fulfil divine law, the Council emphasized that humankind retained free will after the Fall. The council's last session ordered the foundation of seminaries to secure the training of parish priests.
Early Modern Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a Central European regional power, encompassing about 320,000 km2 (120,000 sq mi) of land in the 15th century. It was a composite monarchy: the Hungarian kings also ruled Croatia, and two provinces, Transylvania (in the east) and Slavonia (in the southwest), had their own peculiar administrative systems. Hungary was a multi-ethnic realm, with most Hungarian-speakers living in the central regions and ethnic minorities—among them Slovaks, Romanians and Serbs—inhabiting the periphery. Germans made up the majority of the townspeople. They had regular commercial contacts with the merchants of the Holy Roman Empire and many of them had family links with southern German and Silesian burghers. Although predominantly Catholic, Hungary was a multi-confessional country, with a significant Orthodox population. The Orthodox had their own churches and practiced their religion without major restrictions.
According to modern historians' estimations, the kingdom was home to 3–4 million people in the late 1490s. About 3,2–4,2% of the population were nobles. About 90,000 burghers lived in the royal free boroughs; these were fortified towns and cities with extensive autonomy. Conservative jurists argued that everybody else (those who were neither nobles nor burghers) were to be regarded serfs, but their approach ignored reality. Townspeople in the market towns—unfortified settlements with the right to hold weekly markets—had a higher level of personal freedom than villagers. Rural communities were also divided. Artisans were rewarded with tax-exemption, but most peasants paid seignorial taxes to their lords.
The Royal Council was the composite kingdom's most important decision-making body. It was dominated by the realm's high officers and the Roman Catholic bishops. They also controlled the Diets, or legislative assemblies. The peculiar administrative system of Transylvania had its origin in the co-existence of three privileged groups, known as "nations". The noblemen, known as the Hungarian nation, dominated the counties in central and western Transylvania. The Hungarian-speaking Székelys, who were responsible for the defence of eastern Transylvania, were organized into autonomous districts, or seats. The third nation, the German-speaking Transylvanian Saxons, inhabited parts of southern and northern Transylvania. They were also organized into seats and they elected their supreme leader, the Königsrichter, or royal judge. Some Saxon parishes were affiliated to the Bishopric of Transylvania, but the parishes in the church districts, or deaneries, of Hermannstadt and Kronstadt (now Sibiu and Brașov in Romania) were subject to the Archbishops of Esztergom. Bearing the title of primate, the archbishops were the heads of the Hungarian Catholic Church.