Original scientific paper
The Population Structure in the Royal Borough of Debrecen from the Beginnings to the Trianon’s Peace Treaty
Ildikó Szondi
; Pravni fakultet Sveučilišta u Szegedu; Szeged, Mađarska
Abstract
Debrecen or the «Calvinist Rome» as usually called, is nowadays the second biggest city in Hungary and has been the centre of the Protestant Church since the 16th century. The acceptance of a new religion contributed significantly to strengthening of the Hungarian language and literature in mother tongue and national consciousness which is very present with the Hungarian Protestants to the extent that it is sometimes mentioned as their unique feature. Another feature linked with Debrecen and the Protestants is the fact that the Catholics were ousted not only from public life but from the town as well. The Royal Borough status by the king Leopold I in 1693 was conditioned by the obligation of the town to allow the return of Catholic clergy and ecclesiastical life to the town after two and half centuries of forced exile. The «Calvinist Rome» accepted this condition and the town provided for a construction site on which the Piarists built the today’s St Anne’s cathedral. In spite of tumultuous past the town that the Hungarians often refer to as ‘’civis’’, is interesting for its demographic development especially concerning the religious population structure which changed in course of the centuries. Nowadays the Debrecen Protestant church is believed to be dominant but the growth of Catholics is evident especially of Eastern-Rite Catholics (Uniats). The increase of the latter can be explained by a close vicinity of Ukraine and Romania where there is a great number of Greek-Catholics living in borderland area although inhabitants in both countries are mainly Eastern Orthodox Christians.
Keywords
Debrecen; Royal Borough; Protestants; Calvinist Rome; census; diagrams; schemes; religious population structure; education and occupation
Hrčak ID:
65553
URI
Publication date:
30.11.2010.
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