Vallásosság Csík-, Gyergyó- és Kászonszékek esperességeiben 1829-ben
Religiosity in the Deans of Csík-, Gyergyó- and Kászonseats in 1829

Summary/Abstract: Our study deals with several aspects of Catholic religious life in Transylvania during the first half of the nineteenth century. We have investigated the records of canonical visits performed by Bishop Miklós Kovács in 1829 to the deaconries of Alcsík, Felcsík and Gyergyó. The region represents a compact and closed geographical unit, mainly populated by Roman Catholic Székelys and reflecting an image of a typical pre-modern rural world. The religious life of the region has the same pre-modern characteristics: mass-worship; individual religious life controlled by the rules of a traditional community which exercises strict supervision; and manifestations of a typical Baroque, Tridentine popular religiosity. However, the scope of the present paper has allowed us to touch only on a few topics which form part of wider religious life and worship. We have described the order of Sunday and holiday church services, traced the characteristics and efficiency of preaching, and sketched a picture of moral habits as they were presented in our sources. We have emphasised that modern religious and political ideas, such as those of the Enlightenment and French Revolution, had not yet penetrated this world sunk in a dream of centuries-old feudalism and traditionalism. However, we have also pointed out that the Székely patriarchal world witnessed a level of discontent linked to the order of the time that increased consistently. Growing disappointment, once saturated with ideas of recentlyborn liberalism and the reformist movement, led to the political “explosion” of Székely-land in 1848, which included religious issues too.

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