THE CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY.
The Hungarians, when entering their present homes, were heathens, and
professed what is called _Shamanism_, the faith common to all the
branches of the vast Uralo-Altaic race, and which has survived to this
day amongst the populations of Southern Siberia and Western Mongolia.
The doctrines and principles of Shamanism being generally but little
known, it is proper to sketch here its outlines, in order to make clear
the character of the Hungarian religious rites and customs.
The believers in Shamanism adored one Supreme Being called _Isten_,
a word borrowed from the Persians, who attach to it to this day the
meaning of God. Besides the supreme being, they adored sundry spirits
or protecting deities, such as the gods of the mountains, woods,
springs, rivers, fire, thunder, etc. These divinities were adored
either by prayers or through sacrifices offered to them in the recesses
of woods, or near springs. What these prayers of the Hungarians were
we do not know; we can form, however, some idea of their character on
reading the prayers of the present Shaman worshippers, a specimen of
which is here subjoined:
“O, thou God living above, Abiash!
Who hast clad the earth with grass,
Who hast given leaves to the tree,
Who hast provided the calves with flesh,
Who didst bring forth hair on the head,
Who didst create all the creatures,
Who prepares every thing present!
Thou hast created the stars, O God!
O, Alton Pi, who hast exalted the father,
O, Ulgen Pi, who hast exalted the mother,
Thou creator of all created things,
Thou preparer of all that is prepared,
O God, thou creator of the stars,
O give us cattle, O God!
Give food, O God!
Give us a chief, O God!
Thou preparer of all things prepared,
Thou creator of all things created!
I prayed to my Father
To bestow on me his blessing,
To give me help,
To me, in my house,
And to my cattle, in the herd!
Before thee I bow down.
Give thy blessing, O Kudai,
Thou Creator of all things created,
Thou preparer of all things prepared!”
The sacrifices consisted in the offering up of cattle and particularly,
on solemn occasions, of white horses. Their priests, called _Táltos_,
occupied a pre-eminent place, not only in the political but also in the
social life of the Magyars. They were a kind of augurs and soothsayers,
whose prophecies were based either upon certain natural phenomena, or
upon the inspection of certain portions of slaughtered animals, such
as the intestines, the heart, and shoulder-blade, which latter was put
into the fire, good and bad auspices being prognosticated from the
different positions of the cracks produced.
Religious faith being always open to outside or foreign influence,
it was but natural that the Hungarians, in that long march from
the interior of Asia into Europe, should have borrowed many novel
features from the religious life of the countries through which they
passed. Thus, in the earlier faith of the Magyars, we meet with many
distinctive traits of the Parsee religion, of that of the Khazars, and
of the religions of many Ugrian races, for, like other families of the
Uralo-Altaic race, the Magyars were conspicuous for their spirit of
toleration towards other believers.
The numerous Christian prisoners they had brought with them from
various parts of Europe were not only left in the undisturbed practice
of their creeds, but were even permitted to influence to a very
considerable degree the faith of their conquerors and masters. Under
these circumstances it was by no means a hazardous undertaking, on the
part of Duke Geyza, to give permission to missionaries and priests
to come into the country and preach the gospel. A Suabian monk named
Wolfgang was the first who tried to spread Christianity in Hungary in
917. A greater success was achieved by Pilgrin, the bishop of Passau,
who, taking the matter of conversion into his hands, was able to
report to the Pope in 974 that nearly five thousand Hungarians had
been baptized, and that “under the benign influence of the miraculous
grace of God those heathens even who have remained in their erring
ways forbid no one the baptism, nor do they interfere with the priests,
allowing them to go where they please. Christians and heathens dwell
together in such harmony that here the prophecy of Isaiah seems to be
fulfilled: ‘The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion
shall eat straw like the ox.’”
Considering the difficulty of turning inveterate Asiatics to western
views of life, and, particularly to the totally different doctrines
of the Christian religion, we may easily realize that the total
conversion of the Magyars was a work attended with many struggles
and difficulties. After Pilgrin we find Bruno engaged in the pious
undertaking; but by far the most successful of all of the missionaries
was St. Adalbert, the bishop of Prague, who came to the country in 993,
and, remaining there for a considerable period of time, had the good
fortune to baptize several members of the reigning family, amongst
whom was the son of Duke Geyza, called Vayik, to whom was given the
Christian name of Stephen. This conversion being regarded as one of
the most momentous events in the history of the Hungarians, it will
be worth while explaining the accompanying illustration, representing
this act. In the baptistry, we perceive, as the principal personage,
Stephen, in his baptismal robes. Next to him is seen St. Adalbert,
robed and adorned in keeping with his episcopal dignity and the
apostolic office of conversion. To the left in the foreground, as
witnesses to the baptism, are standing the Emperor of Germany, Otto
III., who was brought there by his friendship for Geyza and his
interest in the baptism of Stephen, and Count Teodato, of San Severino,
a knight who had emigrated from Apulia, and to whom Geyza had entrusted
the education of his son. Behind the latter stands Duke Henry of
Bavaria, who, attending the emperor, is present as a guest. Farther
in the background we perceive Duke Geyza and his consort, sunk in
pious revery. We see Stephen after the act of confessing his faith and
knowledge of Christianity. Already he had turned his face toward the
west, had renounced Satan and devoted himself to the eternal war of the
children of God, and then, turning to the east, had vowed, with exalted
enthusiasm, obedience and devotion to the Law of God as revealed
through Christ. Now we see him, according to the custom of the Church
at that time, in the act of descending into the baptismal font in order
to receive from the hands of the holy bishop the sign of the Cross, the
sacrament of spiritual regeneration.
[Illustration: BAPTISM OF ST. STEPHEN.
(From a painting by P. N. Geiger).]
Pious emotion is reflected in the countenances of the attendant
Magyars, although there may be discernible here and there the
expression of a hidden spirit of antagonism. And the supposition
of such an expression can, in no way, be called a groundless one.
The worship of God on the banks of rivers, in woods and groves, the
offering of sacrifices, and sundry superstitions connected with the
soothsaying of the Shaman priests, certainly impressed more forcibly
the minds of the free and independent dwellers of the steppes than
the mass pronounced in Latin, and the rites of the Catholic Church,
introduced by the monks and priests of the West. Conversion to
Christianity had to be unconditionally followed up not only by
the relinquishment of the old national religion, but also by the
renunciation of the ancient habits and manners, to which the Hungarians
clung in spite of the generations that had passed since their coming
to the banks of the Danube and Theiss. The reluctance, shown here and
there, must be also ascribed to the overbearing attitude assumed by
the foreign missionaries towards the ruling race of the Magyars, upon
whom these Bavarians, Suabians, Czechs, Italians, etc., looked down
as contemptible barbarians, a title they by no means deserved, for it
was only the difference in culture and not the want of culture which
separated the two elements. Suffice it to say that traces of this
discontent became visible very early, and that the slumbering spark
broke out in open rebellion in 997, in the very year when Stephen
ascended the throne, made vacant through the death of his father,
Geyza. History records three different risings, which took place
with the intention of doing away with the newly introduced Christian
religion, together with all the changed modes of life borrowed from
western civilization. In the first instance the movement was headed
by Kopán, a nobleman in the county of Sümeg. His object was to drive
out the foreign Christian missionaries and priests, to dethrone
Stephen, and to re-establish the old pagan faith. A vast multitude of
discontented Hungarians gathered under his banners, but Stephen was not
at all afraid. Collecting his army and the foreign Christian knights
about him, he left his regal seat Gran (Esztergom), and marched on
straight against the rebels. The engagement took place in the vicinity
of Veszprém. It was a hard contested struggle, and only after a bitter
fight and the death of Kopán himself, did his adherents lay down their
arms. The happy issue of the battle decided the victory of Christianity
in Hungary, and all that was still needed, was to strengthen the
new faith. The effects of this victory were, nevertheless, of short
duration, for in the year 1002, another anti-Christian movement broke
out in Transylvania, whose ruler, Duke Gyula, uniting with the partly
pagan, partly Mohammedan Petchenegs, made an inroad into Hungary,
carrying devastation and bloodshed everywhere. Stephen now had to march
against this dangerous enemy, and not only vanquished the Hungarian
duke Gyula, but continued his march into the country of the Petchenegs,
defeated their prince, Kaan, and looting his camp got possession of all
the rich treasures these Petchenegs had carried away from the Greek
empire.
The third and decidedly the most dangerous rising took place in 1046,
when a certain Vatha, a zealous adherent of the former pagan religion,
and an offspring of Duke Gyula, availing himself of the disturbances
arising from the contest for the succession to the throne, incited the
people against the Christian religion and its institutions. They urged
Andrew, the pretender to the throne of the country, “to abolish the
Christian religion and its institutions; to re-establish the ancient
religion and the laws brought from Asia, and demanded that they should
be permitted to pull down the churches, and to drive out the priests
and the foreign immigrants.” Unaware of the number and strength of the
rebels the prince did not venture to refuse their request. This the
rebels took for a tacit compliance, and, emboldened by it, they fell,
with wild rage, upon the Christians. The Germans and Italians that
were found in the country, especially the bishops and priests, were
persecuted with most inhuman cruelty. The churches and other places
devoted to Christian piety were destroyed, the ancient pagan religion
was restored, and everywhere the people resumed the former mode of
life according to their ancient customs and heathen faith, offering up
sacrifices, as before, in woods and groves and near springs. During
these disorders St. Gerhard, the former tutor of St. Emeric, and at
that time bishop of Csanád, lost his life. He was on his way to Pesth,
to meet Andrew, when he fell into the hands of the enraged populace,
was killed by them on the mountain opposite Pesth, called Gellérthegy
(Mount Gerhard) to this day, and his body was thrown into the Danube.
Utterly dangerous as the symptoms of these risings were, we see,
however, how deeply even at that time Christianity had taken root in
Hungary. It very soon became apparent that the revolution was not only
of a religious but of a political and social character. King Andrew
issued rigorous laws, menacing every one who did not return to the
Christian religion and renounce the practice of heathenish customs,
with loss of life and property. The destroyed churches were to be
rebuilt, and the order of things introduced by Stephen be respected
again. These laws and the punishments inflicted upon some of the
stubborn adherents of paganism did not fail to produce their effect,
and, in a short time, the rebellion was crushed and order and quiet
gradually restored throughout the country.
And, strange to say, just as the Mohammedan Turks of our day ascribe
the decline and downfall of their power to the many innovations
introduced into their religious and social life, and discover the
main source of their ruin in the assimilation to the West, precisely
so spoke and argued the Hungarians of that day. They laid particular
stress upon the fact that the nation, whilst adhering to the religion
and customs of its ancestors, had been independent, strong, and mighty,
and had even made the whole of Europe tremble; but that now, since
it had adopted the religion and customs of the West, the nation was
weakened by internal dissensions, strangers had become her masters,
foreign armies had penetrated into the very heart of the country—nay,
Hungary had lost her independence and had become the vassal of a
foreign power. Such representations could not fail to produce their
effect. It was easy to convince the uncultivated Hungarians, who
were not yet confirmed in the Christian religion and but ill brooked
its severe discipline, that all those troubles and misfortunes which
had visited the country were the consequences of the introduction of
Christianity, and that to achieve a splendid future for the nation, in
harmony with its glorious past, this must be done upon the ruins of
Christianity and of the institutions introduced by Stephen.
This great change, however repugnant it may have seemed to the
Hungarians, was, nevertheless, unavoidable. As previously stated, the
foreign elements which flooded the country, owing to the very large
number of captives the Hungarians brought with them from every part
of Europe, had wrought that change in the manners and habits of life
in spite of all the reluctance of the former Asiatic nomads. These
captives greatly outnumbering their masters, were mostly used for
agricultural purposes, but their close contact with the ruling class
unavoidably produced a mitigation of the rude military habits of
the latter. The Hungarians eagerly listened to the Christian chants
and prayers of their subjects. They imitated them in their food and
dress, and, although nearly two centuries had to pass before the
former wanderers on the Central-Asian steppes could get accustomed to
permanent habitations, and, despite the aversion the proud warrior felt
to the plow, the ice, nevertheless, began to break. The Asiatic mode of
thinking had to be given up, and with the tenets of Christian tradition
habits of Christian life were gradually introduced.
This process of transformation was greatly quickened by the personal
intercourse and family connections of Duke Geyza and his chieftains
with the court and nobility of the neighboring countries. Besides the
involuntary immigration caused by the forays, we meet with a remarkable
influx of foreign noblemen who, on the invitation of Duke Geyza,
settled in the country, towards the end of the tenth century. The
brothers Hunt and Pázmán came from Suabia, Count Buzád from Meissen,
Count Hermann from Nuremberg; the Czech knights Radovan, Bogát, and
Lodán came with large retinues; many others immigrated from Italy and
Greece, so that the high nobility of Hungary, already at the beginning
of the conversion of the Magyars, had a large infusion of foreign
blood. It may be added that the entire clergy of that day was composed
of Czechs, Germans, and Italians. The ground was, therefore, duly
prepared, and it wanted only the iron hand of a resolute and wise ruler
to achieve the work of conversion, and to accomplish the great task of
transforming a formerly warlike and nomadic nation into a Christian and
peaceful community. This ruler was King Stephen I.
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