www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Hungarian Greek Catholics

I noticed that Deacon El seems to have Hungarian heritage. What is the incidence of Greek Catholicism among the Hungarians? What is the history of Greek Catholicism in Hungary, etc...

I look forward to the responses, anecdotes, and getting to know Hungary better.

Glory to Jesus Christ!
Glory Forever!

The great majority of Hungarian Greek Catholics are actually Rusyns who live/lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and "became Hungarian" based on where they live(d); in the same sense that we are Americans because we live in America although we have varied ethnic backgrounds. I believe there were also some Hungarian Calvanists who left protestantism and joined the Greek Catholic Church. There are also those, like my ancestors, who are ethnically Hungarian (Magyar) and lived in areas with these Greek Catholics and converted to "the true faith".

Job

Glory Forever!

Job is correct. The Rusyns who lived in northeast Hungary, the Carpathian region, became “Magyarized” due to the political actions of the (Austro-Hungarian) government in Vienna near the end of the 19th century. These policies were aimed at imposing the dominance of the Hungarian language and culture by compelling people of other ethnic groups to adopt the Hungarian language and to develop a Hungarian identity. In fact, most Magyarization was a result of urbanization and industrialization of the urban centers. The language and customs of the people in the frontier regions had not shifted significantly from their earlier roots, and many publications were in Hungarian, Latin and Rusyn.

The Church Slavonic liturgy, liturgicons, and other books were mandated to be rewritten and distributed only in the Hungarian language. From that point the Rusyns in Hungary had the Hungarian identity imposed on them. Since this action took place about a generation before the great migration from Europe to the US, many of the Hungarian Greek Catholics who came to the US brought these customs with them.

My grandfather was born in 1876, after these changes, and fully celebrated all the liturgical celebrations in Hungarian.

In speaking of the Union of Ungvár (Uzgorod) in 1646 of priests of Szepes, Sáros, Zemplén and Ung counties, it is noted that other priests (Bereg and Máramaros counties, under the jurisdiction of the Prince of Transylvania) opposed the union and remained Orthodox. The result is very interesting:

”As a result, the Rusyns of Subcarpathia had, for a period, two bishops at the same time, one Greek Catholic and one Orthodox. (To further complicate the matter, on occasion the two bishops were one and the same person, having been elected as provost at the two principal monasteries.)”


One particular document with a lot of information about the Rusyns in Hungary is http://www.hungarian-history.hu/lib/rusyns/rusyns.pdf

The whole of the Hungarian History Library is rather large and is in http://www.hungarian-history.hu.

At this point, most of the Hungarian communities that grew in the US (such as the Buckeye Rd area of Cleveland) have lost their Hungarian identity with their people being diffused throughout their respective urban areas.

It is good to remember some of our roots. Thank you for the interest in Hungarian history.


Deacon El

Слава Ісусу Христу!

Is there no indigenous Orthodox or Greco Catholics of the northern migration from the iconoclast persecutions or mission of Ss Cyril and Methidius on their way through Dalmatia to Rome?

The government was based in Budapest from 1867 and this government certainly make Hungarianisation a priority in it's part of Austria-Hungary (successor to the Austrian Empire). So they had plenty of time to do this until Hungary was partioned after WWI. The legacy of this is the Latinisations that were fostered in the USA and in the former territories of the old Kingdom.

A large minority of the Greek-Catholics in Hungary are ethnic Romanians, but they seem to have lost their chant and specific liturgical practices.

One result of all this is that Hungary is probably the only country in Eastern Europe where the Greek-Catholics outnumber the Orthodox.

As to proportions: a Greek-Catholic priest of my acquaintance from Hungary is fond of commenting that the Hungarians are one-third Protestant, two-thirds Roman Catholic, and the rest are Greek-Catholics!

Nevertheless, the Greek-Catholic diocese in Hungary may be the strongest Catholic diocese in the country.

Fr. Serge

My apologies...this is a definitely a group I left out...thank you Fr. Serge...



That pretty much sums it up well!

Job and Deacon El--thank you for that great summation! You were able to put into a few words things that took decades to happen and caused immense problems at the time and still cause problems. I remember doing family research and depending on the year, the church records were in latin, Magyar or Slavonic! It certainly kept me on my toes.

As a Rusyn whose ancestors were from that part of Northern Hungary (Kalsa--a small village north east of Kosice and another small village a few miles south east of Kalsa) I will be looking up the information provided by Deacon El on his links. Thanks for those links, Deacon!

Many, many people who came to America put down "Magyar" or "Hungary" as their ethnicity and country when there were really Rusyn or Gypsies. Both ethnicities were considered the lowest of the low and many people wanted to escape that stigma. So the true number of Rusyn's who came to America may very well never be known.

Tim