'In the Churches of Hungaria and Transylvania': looking to Europe's east as Saint Bartholomew's Day approaches

As Hungary will be featuring in Monday's post, I thought it would be appropriate today - as Saint Bartholomew's Day approaches, the anniversary of the implementation of the 1662 Act of Uniformity - to consider how Episcopalian divine John Durel, in his A view of the government and publick worship of God in the reformed churches beyond the seas wherein is shewed their conformity and agreement with the Church of England (1662), points to the government, ceremonies, and liturgy of the Reformed Churches of Hungary and Transylvania as he defends the episcopal and liturgical order of the English Church.

On the matter of church government, Durel notes the account given by the Episcopalian Isaac Basire, who had spent time in Hungary and Transylvania during the Interregnum:

Reverend Doctor Basire sheweth out of the very Canons of the Hungarian Churches that they have Bishops both name and thing for their Governors and Pastors; that they think themselves bound to have those several Orders and Degrees in the Ministry which are mentioned in Scripture, as being of Apostolical Institution; and that all inferiour Ministers swear Canonical obedience unto the said Bishops.

This, declared Durel, clearly demonstrated that episcopacy was not unknown amongst some of the continental Reformed Churches:

But what need I alledge any other argument to prove that the Reformed Churches abroad are not averse to Bishops either thing or name, then this one, that the Hungarian and Transylvanian Churches held commonly by all other Protestants to be as pure and as Reformed as any whatsoever, are divided into Dioceses, the Rulers whereof are Bishops, as here in England, and are commonly so called without the offence of any other Reformed Church.

He also noted with approval the oath of canonical obedience given by clergy in the Hungarian and Transylvanian Churches, evidence of the disparity - rather than presbyterian equality - of ministers:

I must not forget to observe that in the said Churches the inferior Ministers swear Canonical obedience to the Bishop, and to the Seniors their Ordinaries ... "I shall also faithfully observe the Canons of the Church; that I shall yield unto the Bishop and the Seniors all due obedience, as being my Superiours"

Regarding ceremonies, Durel quoted the Second Helvetic Confession on 'Rites, Ceremonies, and Things Indifferent':

If different rites are found in churches, no one should think that for this reason the churches disagree ... And we, today, having in our churches different rites in the celebration of the Lord's Supper and in some other things, nevertheless do not disagree in doctrine and faith; nor is the unity and fellowship of our churches thereby rent asunder. For the churches have always used their liberty in such rites, as being things indifferent. We also do the same thing today.

The Reformed Churches of Hungary and Transylvania were among the first listed by Durel as those who, alongside the Swiss Churches, affirmed this Confession, having adopted it at the Synod of Debreczen in 1567. They too, then, had "the liberty of making and enjoyning different Laws about Rites and Ceremonies":

The Confession out of which these words are extracted, may very well pass for the general confession of the Reformed Churches, having been subscribed, besides those of the several Cantons of Switzerland and their Confederates by the Hungarian, Transylvanian, Polonian, Lithuanian, Genevan Churches; every one of which hath an Uniformity within it self, suffering no Ministers amongst them, but such as subscribe and conform to their established Laws and Government.

In addition to matters of polity and ceremonies, the Hungarian and Transylvanian Reformed Churches had a liturgical order similar to that of the English Church:

And now to speak of the things contained in their Books of Common-Prayer. Most have morning and evening Prayer, as the Hungarian, Transylvanian, Lithuanian and Polonian Liturgies ... In the Churches of Hungaria and Transylvania at Morning Service the Lesson (for they have but one) is taken out of the Old Testament; and at Evening Prayer out of the New. In Hessen they have likewise proper Lessons for every day. In Poland, Lithuania, Hungaria, Transylvania, and indeed in most Reformed Churches, they have Gospels and Epistles for every Sunday and other Holy days; and the Minister is to take his Text out of the Gospel ... In the said Churches of Poland and Lithuania, and likewise in them of Transylvania and Hungaria, the people useth always to say the Prayers aloud after the Minister, just as we do in the Church of England. Such was also the use of all the Churches of the Ʋnity of the Fratres Bohemi ... in the Churches of Transylvania and Hungaria the Minister useth to break the bread when he nameth the breaking of it in the words of the institution of the Lords Supper; and that he taketh the Cup likewise at the naming of it at the same time.

In a 1662 sermon, The Liturgie of the Church of England asserted, Durel also drew this liturgical parallel with Hungary and Transylvania:

I may venture to tell you by the way, that the Churches of Hungary, Transylvania, Lithuania, Poland, the great and the less, and the remainders of the Church of the Brethren of Bohemia (who of all Christians were the first Reformers in these latter times) have not onely their Liturgies very like unto ours both in matter and form, but that they use them also after our manner. There the people repeat aloud the Prayers after the Minister. They stand up at the rehearsal of the Confession of the Christian Faith, and they bear their part in certain places at Divine Service as is practised among us, namely in their great Litany, which is the same with ours.

As, then, we prepare for Saint Bartholomew's Day and the anniversary of the Church of England restoring its episcopal and liturgical order, we heed Durel's reminder that "the Reformed Church of England is not condemned by the other Reformed Churches, whether for her Government or Publick Worship". Durel particularly illustrated this as he looked to Europe's east, to the Reformed Churches of Hungary and Transylvania. This assists in offering an alternative to the 'Black Bartholomew' myth propounded over centuries by critics of the Act of Uniformity - a myth which, ironically, is adopted by some Anglo-Catholic commentators. Saint Bartholomew's Day 1662 was not a rejection of the Reformed nature of the Church of England. It was, rather, a reaffirmation of an order - after two decades of disorder - which cohered with that of continental Reformed churches, particularly those of Hungary and Transylvania. Looking to Europe's east, in other words, places Saint Bartholomew's Day 1662 in a context described by Diarmaid MacCulloch in his account of the Hungarian and Transylvanian churches: "another and older style of Reformed Protestantism, with more varied and cosmopolitan origins" than those who looked only to Geneva and a presbyterian order.

(The images are of the Reformed Church in Csaroda, Hungary.)