Egy teológushallgató találkozása a felekezeti sokszínűséggel: Conrad Jacob Hiltebrandt Erdélyben 1656–1658
A Theology Student Meets Confessional Plurality: Conrad Jacob Hiltebrandt in Transylvania, 1656–1658

Summary/Abstract: Conrad Jacob Hiltebrandt, a Pomeranian student of Lutheran theology travelled through the Principality of Transylvania three times between 1656 and 1658 in connection to various Swedish diplomatic missions to Eastern and Southeastern Europe. His travelogue – which had been reworked by the author himself several times after his arrival to his home region, with the inclusion of many pieces of information from the contemporary Staatsbeschreibung literature – offers an interesting insight into how a 17th-century traveler, with special interest in theology, seen this multiconfessional region. The work indeed offers a variety of interesting information concerning the individual confessional groups, and even accounts of discussions on theological questions with Isaac Basire, the professor of the Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) college, as well as of the latter’s fight against the Transylvanian Presbyterian movement. Nevertheless, the interconfessional tensions – which in spite of the general acceptance of the system of four accepted churches, and the tolerated status of Orthodoxy, had been present in the principality – did not feature on the pages of the young theology student’s travelogue. Even if the historians of today are justified to discover such traces that point towards an initiative for the Calvinist confessionalisation of the Transylvanian state in the 17th century, these did not reach the point that a contemporary coming from a confessionalised region would have noticed. The most striking feature of the Transylvanian society for Hiltebrandt remained its multiconfessional character, and the Pomeranian theology student seen it – contrary to today’s expectations – with a certain benevolent irony, not as a desirable state.

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