The
Reformation spread to
Hungary during the 16th century. In
Geneva,
Switzerland, the
French reformer
John Calvin formulated the doctrines of the
Reformed Church, and his followers spread the Reformed (Calvinist) gospel across
Europe. As a result of
the Ottoman conquest of Hungary, Hungary was divided into three parts. The northwest came under
Habsburg rule; the eastern part of the kingdom and
Transylvania (vassal state) came under the
Ottoman Empire. While the
Ottomans urged conversion to Islam, it was the Reformation which instead spread throughout Turkish-occupied Hungarian territories. Only in the Habsburg-ruled western Hungary was this process prevented by the
Counter-Reformation policy encouraged by the Monarchy. A Calvinist Constitutional Synod was held in 1567 in
Debrecen, the main hub of Hungarian Calvinism, where the
Second Helvetic Confession was adopted as the official confession of Hungarian Calvinists. In 1683-1699,
the Ottomans were defeated by
a Christian alliance led by the
Habsburgs. After this, the Habsburg Emperors started to strongly introduce the
Counter-Reformation into the liberated territories. Consequently, for most of the 18th century, Hungarian Protestants were second-class citizens. Imperial edicts, such as the
Resolutio Carolina of 1731, settled the status of Protestant churches. Only the end of the 18th century brought some relief to the Hungarian Reformed Church. Finally, the 1867 establishment of the Austro-Hungarian
Dual Monarchy gave free way for the legal emancipation of Hungarian Protestants. In 1881, for the first time in an almost 400-year-long history, the four Hungarian Reformed Church Districts together with the Transylvanian Reformed Church held a unified Synod in the city of Debrecen. The modern Hungarian Reformed Church was born there at the Debrecen Synod of 1881. The internal hierarchy and the synodal-presbyterian system of the Reformed Church remains nearly unchanged from that time. After
World War I, the
Treaty of Trianon in 1920 greatly altered the Hungarian Reformed Church. It made two two-thirds of the
Hungarian people and a large number of Reformed Synod's and congregations suddenly within foreign countries. The percentages of
Protestantism in Hungary, however, has been stable over the last century (1938-2010), oscillating between 10% and 20% of the population. Another trial came to the Church with the establishment of the
People's Republic of Hungary after
World War II. After the confiscation of church lands, schools and institutions, on October 7, 1948, the
General Secretary of the Communist Party,
Mátyás Rákosi, forced the Reformed Church to sign an agreement that brought all the denomination's work and personnel under the control of the
secret police, the
ÁVH and the
MIA III, and of the ruling
Communist Party of Hungary. The forty years of Communist rule brought both
state atheism and
religious persecution to members of all Christian denominations, and only the
end of communism in Hungary brought about relief. Thereafter, a "free church in free state" model has been adopted. == Theology ==