LUCIA ŠTEFLOVÁ
FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA PREŠOVSKÁ UNIVERZITA V PREŠOVE
FACULTY OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF PRESOV
RESTRICTIONS AGAINST EVANGELICAL PASTORS DURING THE SO-CALLED TEN YEARS OF
PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTS
Abstract: The period from 1671 to 1681 is usually referred to by church historians as the ten-year
persecution of Protestants. Not only this decade, but also almost the entire second half of the
17th century was closely associated with the government of Leopold I and his re-Catholicization
measures, which included a number of restrictions, due to which Protestants in Hungary were
persecuted. Many measures concerned evangelical pastors, who were often expelled from their
parishes, persecuted for no reason, tried and even imprisoned, or sent to the galleys. Evangelical
parish priests found themselves in a difficult situation, whose lives began to change significantly
precisely under the pressure of ever-increasing re-Catholicization measures. The situation became
most markedly aggravated in some church congregations precisely during the ten-year persecution
of evangelicals. Several evangelical pastors were forced to leave their parishes, hand over their
churches to the Catholics and flee. Some managed to fulfill their duties despite the re-Catholization
pressures, others were not so lucky and were expelled from their churches and parishes. At the
beginning of the 1770, churches were taken from the Evangelicals, along with all church buildings
and property, and Protestant priests and teachers were subsequently removed. Some of them
emigrated voluntarily, some were forced to emigrate. Priests and rectors who refused to emigrate or
convert were condemned and sent to the galleys. As an official form of restrictions, representatives
of the Catholic Church, with the support of the monarch, used the courts, to which they summoned
Protestant preachers. Such an extraordinary court was held in Prešpork in 1673, to which Archbishop
Juraj Szelepcsényi summoned 33 evangelical and two reformed priests.
Keywords: Evangelical Church; Protestants; Counter-reformation; priests; canonical visitation
THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, Vol. 93, 2022, No. 1, Number of Article 5, p. 65 – 74.
DOI: 10.14712/12117617.93.1.5