Chapter LXIII: Section 5: The Church of Hungary

[Sidenote: Conversion of Hungary.]

The Hungarians or Magyars were descended from a Tartar or Finnish tribe, who settled in Pannonia towards the close of the ninth century, and thence made fierce inroads on Italy and Germany. In A.D. 948, two Hungarian chiefs were baptized at Constantinople, and the daughter of one of them afterwards marrying Geisa, Duke of {132} Hungary (A.D. 972-A.D. 997), Christian influences were, by degrees, brought to bear upon the Hungarian people. About the same time German missionaries began to labour in Hungary, but it was not until the reign of St. Stephen, the first King of Hungary (A.D. 997-A.D. 1038), that the country was completely evangelized. [Sidenote: Hungary Latinized.] Stephen did all in his power to aid the work of the German missionaries; Hungary was divided into dioceses, and the originally eastern origin of the Hungarian Church, as well as the Sclavonic origin of the people, forgotten under the desire felt by the king to keep on a friendly footing with the German emperors and the Popes.

[Sidenote: Attacks of the Turks.]

The Church of Hungary suffered severely from the invasion of the Mongul Tartars, A.D. 1241, and when, about a century later, some of these Tartars returned from Asia and settled in Europe under the name of Turks, Hungary, owing to its frontier situation, was constantly liable to their attacks. During the fifteenth century, Hungarian bravery was the great barrier that opposed the spread of Mahometanism over Western Europe. Even after the fall of Constantinople, the Turks vainly endeavoured to make themselves masters of their Christian neighbours, and found themselves obliged to retreat discomfited from the siege of Belgrade, A.D. 1456.