Towards a New Understanding of Vocation—Historical Traumas as Catalysts for the Changing Self-Perception of the Lower Clergy in the 20th Century

Abstract

This study investigates the transformations of the Hungarian Catholic clergy during the 20th century in its social relations, self-perception, and attitudes, with a particular focus on the Diocese of Pécs. It concentrates on events that caused collective shock, such as the advance of the front and the Soviet occupation during World War II; the confiscation of church property; the enforced migration processes; and the impact of the Communist regime’s ecclesiastical and social policies. The analysis emphasizes the role- and context-dependent patterns discernible in the documents produced by the clergy concerning these events, particularly in the parish Historia Domus. The study models the impact of these violent reconfigurations on clergy dispositions within the framework of Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, specifically the notions of “cleft” and “plural habitus”, highlighting the significance of behavior patterns in praxis transmitted through generations of clergy. It interprets the discrepancy between the altered context of action and the long-established, “interiorized” habitus, considering the phenomenon of asynchronicity, and identifies general and context-specific characteristics through a method of historical comparison. Overall, the study offers a perspective that perceives the historically evolved specificities of the norm as intrinsically linked to the local context.

1. Introduction

The study examines and interprets changes in the social relations of the Hungarian Catholic Church, in the self-assessment and attitude of its priests, and in the mechanisms of the functioning of the church structure. The focal points of the investigation are defined by events that caused collective trauma, as such circumstances render visible forms of response that had previously remained hidden or unarticulated. These include the movements of the front line followed by Red Army’s advancement during World War II and the subsequent Soviet occupation of the country; the destabilization of the Church’s material base, particularly the confiscation of Church estates; forced migration processes that reshaped the sociocultural profile of parishes; and the social–political measures of the communist dictatorship. The expectations, perceptions, and evaluations expressed in sources primarily produced by lower-ranking priests—especially in the Historiae Domuses1—reveal attachments, relationships, and attitudes, as well as role- and context-dependent possibilities. A priest’s relation to the surrounding configuration, of which they are themselves a part, is shaped by internalized, habitual, and almost automatic patterns of orientation. As such, the analysis of these discourses often reveals more about priests’ self-image and their conception of the Church than about the actual course of the events in question. Our interest is deliberately focused on these questions: What kind of self-image can be discerned through the social practices observable in micro-level interactions? Can long-term behavioural patterns be identified? What conceptions are implicitly reflected in utterances that refer to the idea of the Church in an unexamined way? By adopting such a perspective, we can overcome dualistic constructions based on fixed, essentialist oppositions (such as oppressor–victim, state–church) and dismantle the often-naïve historical narratives that are generated by an a priori notion of “the Church” itself (Brox 1970, pp. 49–50).

2. Research Methodology

This study synthesizes the findings of nearly fifteen years of systematic research2. It focuses on parishes within the Diocese of Pécs that are located outside the episcopal centre—rural communities occupying a peripheral position in terms of the information flows influencing institutional decision-making. Here, “periphery” does not refer to exclusion from the whole or to the local reception of developments originating in the “centre”. Rather, it denotes local experiences and the specific evaluations arising from them—experiences that are either barely perceptible or interpreted differently in the ecclesiastical “court.” Differences in opinion, rooted in distinct environments for action and divergent structural positions, were often exploited by the state, for instance, to divide the clergy. The components of a generally accepted normative framework carry different weight in different contexts. Depending on the situation, they may result in varying configurations, shifting evaluations, and diverse patterns of behaviour. In this sense, action becomes the situational or deliberate adaptation of norms in response to current challenges. Individual positions taken within the Church depend on where the actors are situated in the ecclesiastical structure, the quality of their relationship to that position, their related interests and strategic considerations, and the opportunities and limitations these positions afford. The way certain topics are articulated reflects underlying conceptions of role. Such expressions do not merely convey the actors’ evaluations of their own situations but also speak of their attitudes toward the outside world (Schnoor 2012, pp. 423–29). Adopting a perspective from below—a position grounded in fieldwork—has brought into sharper focus numerous characteristics that are scarcely visible from “above,” i.e., from national or episcopal perspectives. The most significant challenge was to bring these aspects into a coherent framework, to navigate the “play of scales,” and to narrate them in a historically meaningful way. The research questions and task structure, as well as the sources used, activated methodological innovations that made it possible to describe the dynamic interplay between external pressures and internal conditions—manifested in evaluations and normative orders expressed through everyday practices. To this end, I drew upon a wide range of microhistorical, conceptual–historical, ethnographic, and sociological approaches and vocabularies in an effort to make sense of the historical phenomena at hand. This eclectic methodology was not intended to take possession of or “dominate” the history of the specific milieu of priests in the Diocese of Pécs—nor was that the objective. The central research question aimed at identifying long-term patterns that persisted over time. The analysis required different methodological toolkits depending on the particular situation. In this text, I attempt to coordinate these approaches with the help of the concept of asynchronicity and Bourdieu’s notion of “habitus”, used here as analytical tools. Finally, I apply the method of historical comparison to identify local and context-specific characteristics of broader, meso-level phenomena. For this, the historical entity of the Transylvanian Diocese—formed under conditions that were significantly different from but partly comparable to those in Hungary—offers a valuable point of reference.

Through this analysis, it becomes possible to evaluate the general features of clerical attitudes, normative systems, and self-perceptions in East–Central Europe, along with the cultural, social, and political factors that have shaped them. My perspective on the subject of my research—the Church3—is rooted in secular history. That is, I approach the Church as a historically and culturally situated human community, a historical phenomenon with institutional and sociological dimensions and a distinct form of self-understanding. What concerns me is what happened, how it happened, and where—in relation to both earlier and later coordinates—as time progressed (Congar 1970, pp. 496–97). In this regard, I must state at the outset that, contrary to my initial expectations and in full awareness of my own perspective, religious certainties did not prove explanatorily significant in terms of my research questions. I stress that this applied to generalizable, model-based patterns of collective behaviour—not exclusive or absolute explanations. Like an underground stream, other phenomena and tendencies could also be detected—ones that may have performative effects over time—but at the social scale, they did not serve as dominant models. It may seem surprising, but this historical work, and the elaboration of the topic indicated in the title, did not require deep theological training. The key to understanding lay much more in the “how.” Investigating the “how” revealed and makes comprehensible the “what,” the “what exactly,” and the “why.” From this perspective, the fact that the community I examine considers itself the “People of God” held no particular explanatory significance in this study. Thus, when I contribute to discourses on ecclesiology, I do so as an interpreter of the Church’s historical journey ad extra (Consemius 1975, pp. 196–97). However, following Henri-Irénée Marrou, I also hold that “knowledge of prior causes transforms the present state of affairs.” Therefore, I share the conviction that historical awareness can liberate our understanding of the Church from the hidden burdens of the past (Marrou 1954, 273f., cited in Congar 1970, p. 500). It became clear from the very outset of research that the expectations of the community under study, embedded in the past, fundamentally shaped its future—and that without understanding this “Futures Past,” the present cannot be interpreted. How, then, does the past exert control over the current moment? In a brilliant essay, László Péter, examining the foundations of legal systems on both sides of the Rhine—specifically in the German and Hungarian contexts—argues, “It would be wrong to assume that the Communist system of church-state relations was entirely the product of the post-war regime. The system had a good deal less to do with the Communist form of government and ideology and a good deal more affinity with the legal and political traditions of Eastern Europe than is generally assumed” (Péter 1995, p. 3).

To discern what has remained constant and what has changed, it is the past that offers perspective. Accordingly, I examine the characteristic features of diocesan priestly practice as part of the process through which long-term dispositional patterns crystalized.4 In this context, I adopt Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, understood as a system of durable and transposable dispositions that integrates all prior experience and functions at each moment as a matrix of perceptions, evaluations, and actions (Bourdieu 1972, p. 261). One of the key elements of the concept of habitus is that social action is shaped not only by rational decisions but by unconscious, nonreflective dispositions. Because these routine-based dispositions are rooted in prior practices, the performance of everyday tasks becomes habitual and structured. The analytical concept of habitus thus makes it possible to model social practices (Hadas 2022, p. 43). This is especially the case for bodies such as the clergy, where the transmission and “inscription” of dispositions that shape practice constitutes, in effect, an institutionalized strategy.

3. The “Saddle Time” (Sattelzeit)

The patterns of attitudes identified in texts produced by diocesan priests reflect dispositions structured by social embeddedness, as well as the practices mediated and shaped by those dispositions. More precisely, these utterances reveal long-term, ingrained patterns of disposition conditioned by various factors. While the precise origins of their sociogenesis cannot be determined, the emergence of the normative framework that shaped the Hungarian clergy’s role conception and role performance in the 20th century—and the transformation of the expectations associated with them—can be clearly dated. In this respect, Koselleck’s metaphor of Sattelzeit (“saddle time”) proves illuminating—describing the transformation of key concepts that shaped attitudes across all domains of life during the modern period (Koselleck 1972, pp. XIII–XXVII). In the context of the Hungarian clergy, this period corresponds to the age of the Habsburgs ruling in the spirit of enlightened absolutism. The flourishing of Baroque religiosity and ecclesiastical life, particularly in the second half of Maria Theresa’s reign (1740–1780) and during the rule of Joseph II (1780–1790), was confronted with new expectations: secular power began to evaluate religious activity in terms of social utility and sought to integrate the Church’s embeddedness and institutional presence into its reform agenda. This Enlightenment-era norm, in addition to emphasizing the pastoral care of souls, promoted “improvement” based on rational understanding. At first, this model of promoting social integration aligned with the instructions of Pope Benedict XIV. The “moralization” of local customs and moral practices encouraged by the pope effectively aimed to establish an order grounded in values similar to those of the ruler. However, the government’s centralizing and modernizing strategies increasingly relied on ecclesiastical structures while gradually devaluing the religious and moral dimensions of Church activity (Gőzsy 2021; Forgó 2025). In the role assigned to it by the state, the clergy became the morally progressive educator of the people and, in economic and social matters, a mediator between the sovereign and the populace. The Churches themselves did not seek separation. They aspired to legal recognition: that their ecclesiastical statutes be issued by the ruler, and that they be granted legal and administrative protection by state authorities. This included receiving assistance from secular authorities in enforcing internal regulations and maintaining ecclesiastical discipline. This clerical vocation—authorized to educate and instruct the people and recognized and supported by the state in that role—characterized Hungarian ecclesiastics at the corporate level up until the end of the 19th century. The sustainability and relevance of this role conception, moreover, may not have been fundamentally questioned even to this day.

4. World War I, Revolutions, Trianon, and the Interwar Period

The struggles of life behind the front lines during World War I, the perceptible reconfiguration of values and norms, and the increasingly apparent sense of anomie (or at least the interpretation of events in such terms), along with the phenomenon of “everyday violence” after the war, all shaped how the Church assessed and related to these developments (Csibi and Vértesi 2016). The experience of crisis and collapse—despite the varied diagnoses and proposed remedies—instrumentalized the Hungarian Church. A central question is whether the destabilization of the Church’s prior “role,” which is especially perceptible in the texts produced by clergy between 1917 and 1920, influenced or redefined the stances, dispositions, and strategies that would come to guide its subsequent principles and practices. Can general changes in praxis be identified in comparison with earlier periods, and if so, what are they? As a consequence of the Treaty of Trianon, signed on 4 June 1920, the territory of Hungary—excluding Croatia—was reduced from 283,000 km² to 93,000 km², and its population, from 18.2 million to 7.9 million. Hungary thereby became an essentially ethnically homogeneous nation state—only the Germans continued to represent a significant national minority—and this change led to fundamental changes in the religious composition of the country. The proportion of Latin-rite Catholics increased from 49.3% to 63.9%. However, because the Romanian and Ruthenian believers no longer lived within the borders of Hungary, the proportion of Greek Catholics decreased; while in 1910 they had accounted for 11% of the population, by 1920 this figure had dropped to 2.2%. The proportion of Calvinists—predominantly of Hungarian ethnicity—rose from 14.3% to 21%. In contrast, the proportion of Lutherans decreased from 7.1% to 6.2% because of the loss of German and Slovak communities. After the collapse of the monarchy and the failed liberal and Bolshevik revolutions in Hungary, the newly established political regime defined itself as “counterrevolutionary,” “Christian-national,” and “conservative.” During the so-called Horthy era (1920–1944), the Churches assumed an important role in public life and—setting aside some criticism concerning the “social question” (Petrás 2011, 2023, pp. 25–46)—actively supported the ideological foundations of the regime. While the Christian political program between the two World Wars did encounter subtle yet significant criticism within the Church’s internal forums (Hantos-Varga 2025), the institutional and symbolic positioning of the Churches suggested harmony with political Christianity. The state and the Churches operated in close cooperation and mutual dependence across many areas of life (Fazekas 2004; Leslie 2004; Spannenberger 2006). This cooperation also enabled a significant shift toward internal decision-making autonomy for the Churches. The Church’s most stable source of income remained its landholdings. Its influence was especially strong in the field of education—within elementary schools, secondary education (gymnasia), and teacher training colleges. For instance, in the 1924/25 academic year, 67% of elementary schools in Hungary were operated by religious denominations. Moreover, the guiding principles of state education and social policy aligned with the prevailing Christian cultural ideal of the time. Overall, the relationship between the state and the established Churches remained largely undisturbed in the interwar period. Mutual loyalty resulted in an active Church with strong institutional infrastructure and effective social engagement. The “priest” was a respected and acknowledged figure in the society—distinct in his role as a mediator between the sacred and the secular and often as a representative of both ecclesiastical and, at times, state authority, tasked with communicating the norms of each. Even if he came from the same world as his parishioners, he stood “above” the lifeworld in which he acted.

This solid symbiosis with the state came to an end with the systemic collapse brought about by World War II. Land redistribution, the expulsion of German-speaking parishioners, the establishment of a new political order, and the final collapse of already unstable norms swiftly dismantled the clergy’s former role as an active agent and, with it, one of the core pillars of its self-identity.

5. Characteristics of the Diocese of Pécs

With these general features in mind, and before presenting and analysing the series of collective trauma and their effects in the years following the war, it is necessary to outline the general conditions of the Diocese of Pécs—the chosen field of investigation—during the period in question.

In terms of both size and population, the Diocese of Pécs ranked as the fifth largest diocese in Hungary at the time. In 1948, pastoral care for the faithful was provided across 179 parishes and several filial churches by a total of 507 priests (including 351 secular clergy, 77 members of religious orders, and 79 retired or seminarians). A total of 494 religious associations operated within the diocese. The parishes were organized into 18 deaneries, which were grouped under two archdeaneries. According to 1948 data, over 80 percent of the diocese’s population—some 489,136 individuals—belonged to the Catholic denomination, representing approximately 7.4 percent of Hungary’s entire Catholic population (Balogh and Gergely 1993, p. 195; Almanach 1984, p. 644). A survey relevant to the diocese was conducted by the Hungarian Public Opinion Research Service in May 1948, measuring the intensity of church attendance. It found that in rural Hungary—where 80 percent of the population lived—two-thirds of citizens regularly attended church, while an additional 14 percent participated at least during major religious holidays (Gyarmati 1998, p. 97). One notable social characteristic of the diocese was the overrepresentation of German-speaking (Swabian) Catholics compared with the national average. According to the 1941 census, approximately 35 percent of Hungary’s German mother-tongue population lived within the territory of the Diocese of Pécs.

6. Expectations

The fears and expectations surrounding the anticipated arrival of the Soviet army formed a shared cultural pattern in clerical writings. Among the clergy, the memory of the atheist propaganda and Church-liquidating policies of the 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic remained vivid. Representatives of the Church had played an active role in constructing the anticommunist narrative that defined the interwar period, and circulating reports of religious persecution and atrocities committed by the Red Army only deepened these negative sentiments. In this respect, even those clerics who had long criticized the Christian-nationalist discourse on Church–state relations or had advocated for social reform did not significantly differ in their expectations. The Hungarian clergy associated the Red Army’s appearance with the brutal enforcement of religious and ecclesiastical persecution, which they viewed as inseparable from Bolshevism. In their value system, the Bolshevik alternative represented the worst imaginable outcome—an apocalyptic vision. The bishop’s circular obliging the clergy to stay in the area also refers to this:

“They are bound, by divine and ecclesiastical law, to remain among their faithful under all circumstances, and therefore may not leave their station without my explicit or reasonably presumed permission, however dangerous the situation may become. Even at the risk of our lives, we must hold fast to our sacred mission. […]”5

It was under such mental conditions—and in a society suddenly transformed from hinterland to front zone—that the Church encountered the actual arrival of the Red Army in the autumn of 1944. Amid the collapse of the state administration, parish priests who remained with their congregations often came to embody a degree of institutional continuity. They were typically responsible for receiving the arriving Soviet units; in smaller settlements, officers (or some of them) often quartered themselves at the parish residence, and priests were at times forced to assume the role of mediators between the local population and the occupying forces. Obligated by their ordinaries to remain in place, the clergy became the sole producers of institutional records during the passage of the front. The documentary value of these texts is therefore exceptional. A descriptive account of the period of the front’s movement is necessary not only to offer insight into the typical features of parish records but because it is only in light of the Church’s reception of this phase that the diverging evaluations of the subsequent period become fully intelligible.

7. The Experience

The language of the entries recorded in the parish diaries is varied, their style shaped by individual habitus and the widely differing writing abilities of their authors. At times they are poetic and metaphorical; at other times, austere and dispassionate, resembling the linguistic register of sociological reports. The entries typically address the arrival of the Russian military, the population’s encounters with foreign soldiers and culture, experiences of violence, and the evolving conditions of everyday religious practice. Some notes adopt a reflective or summarizing tone, occasionally including evaluative elements or turning to the early stages of local “repoliticization” following the Soviet occupation. These entries often convey not only a sense of religious and moral danger but foreshadow a more general decline in moral life.

“A ‘new’ life begins—joyless, a life constantly disturbed, filled with perpetual uncertainty and fear, devoid of security for life and property. The slogans: Democracy! Freedom! But neither is to be found! Only misery and suffering. The fate of a lost war is a heavy one. Spring work begins—or would begin. Everything is forced labour. No cart, no horse.”6

Partly because of the authors’ roles, the subject matter often evokes the tone of laments or jeremiads. Local atrocities are sometimes described with painstaking detail but at other times alluded to only in vague or suggestive terms. From these records—rooted in personal, concrete experiences of everyday events—a picture emerges of how the moral and social fabric of smaller communities (villages, small towns) began to unravel. Despite the vast range of individual stories, a few constant elements can be discerned. Foremost among these is the complete unpredictability of the occupying forces, along with their generally favourable treatment of clergy. Beyond the temporary adjustment of Stalinist Church policy, it is worth noting that compared with other dioceses, the front passed relatively quickly through the territory of the Diocese of Pécs, resulting in relatively low material and human losses (Vértesi 2017).

Numerous contemporary records attest to the fact that Soviet soldiers generally showed respect toward priests. After occupying a settlement, Catholic churches typically reopened and regular Masses resumed, even if the frightened population often dared not leave their homes. Accounts of looting are recurring themes in nearly all reports, but equally noteworthy are the entries that capture experiences that contradict prevailing expectations and stereotypes.

“Although they took everything they could carry, with the exception of a few excessively drunk individuals, they treated us priests with considerable respect. In this one point, the German propaganda proved to be an exaggeration.”7

“The older Russian soldiers were religious. They would bow before the cross and sacred images, making the sign of the cross. You could frequently find them in the church, where they often gathered to sing together. They had a particular fondness for the hymn ‘Gospodine pomiluj’8, which they sang in the choir. They even contributed money to the collection box. Theas meant that a significant amount of Russian, Serbian, and Romanian paper money ended up in the collection boxes. My parishioners often remarked that the German soldiers never even set foot in the church, while the Russians attended the masses.”9

For many clergy, the trauma stemmed less from personal threat than from what they witnessed and recorded as chroniclers. Although the Soviet military command issued multiple orders prohibiting cruelty, these were largely ineffective in practice. In some regions, public safety entirely collapsed. The occurrence of atrocities rose sharply when soldiers found large quantities of alcohol, especially wine. While many acts of violence—including sexual violence against women—were classified as “individual excesses” and could often be attributed to a breakdown in military discipline, the mass deportation of civilians must be considered part of the institutionalized injustices of Soviet policy.

Returning to our starting point, what was the ecclesiastical reception of the frontline’s passage? Can we speak of a shared experience in terms of how communities received and processed the impact, or must we settle for acknowledging the irreducible diversity of individual cases? Reading the texts, it does not appear methodologically forced to regard the Catholic clergy as a community of experience and expectation in the Koselleckian sense and to interpret their mediated accounts as a complex intertwining of individual and collective layers of experience (Koselleck 2000, pp. 349–75).

The Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Council convened for the first time after the war on 24 May 1945, following a long period of forced suspension.10 The minutes of the meeting include a brief summary of wartime events: “The storm of war swept over us—ecclesiastically speaking, more gently than we had expected.” The arrival of the Soviet forces had not come as a surprise, and what did occur—strictly in ecclesiastical terms—did not hurt as deeply as anticipated. The Church had consciously prepared itself for the inevitable, even for the possibility of martyrdom. From the spring of 1944 onward, Church authorities had continuously prepared the clergy for the approaching front and the necessary precautions. Compared with these expectations, the events themselves did not result in a general, institutionally articulated collective trauma. By contrast, the rest of the minutes—twenty times longer—focuses on grievances related to the postwar situation, particularly the land reform, the activities of national committees, and the political police. Here, the gap between expectation and experience is clearly signalled in tone: “One might justifiably have believed… And instead, what happened?” This passage vividly expresses that the true shock came not from what had been expected and prepared for, but from the everyday realization of what had once seemed improbable. When experience-based expectations are fulfilled, they no longer shock. Only the unexpected can truly surprise. The macro-level shock is almost identically reflected in the local experience:

“And the unbelievable happened: innocent Hungarian citizens, loyal to their heritage, were made beggars and with a few belongings they were thrown out of their houses and dispossessed of everything they had. For the village of Szajk, this blatantly unjust day was 4 September 1947, when 51 families with 218 persons, all but two of Hungarian nationality, were deported from their 200-year-old home to Saxony. […] In place of the displaced families, 51 families were resettled […] with a total of 201 persons, of which 36 Catholic families with 148 persons and 15 Calvinist families with 56 persons. This is a great change in the 200 years of the village’s history.”11

This ideological shift, paired with a sweeping change of the political and economic elite at the beginning of the period, affected every segment of the Catholic institutional structure and had a profound impact on its functioning. The main stages of the marginalization of the Church(es) in Hungary in the years following World War II include: the breaking of the Churches’ economic power through uncompensated land confiscation in 1945; the restriction of their public, cultural, and political activities in 1946–47; and the termination of ecclesiastical educational activities in June 1948. These restrictions—echoing the Josephinist model—were justified in the name of emancipating the “oppressed classes” (Wildmann 2007, pp. 29–33). After the founding of the Hungarian Workers’ Party (MDP) in June 1948, the campaign against the so-called “clerical reaction” openly moved to the centre of political life. In the process of dismantling parliamentary democracy, the MDP came to regard the Catholic Church as its next major political adversary. To neutralize it, the Party employed not only political propaganda but all available instruments of the executive power and the judiciary, which had by then been brought under its control. The main events in this Church-liquidating campaign include: the arrest and trial of Cardinal József Mindszenty (December 1948–February 1949); the organization of the Peace Priests movement; the signing of the so-called “Agreement” between Church and state (August 1950); and the revocation of operating licenses for religious orders (September 1950) (Dreisziger 2016, pp. 116–27; Gárdonyi 2021; Balogh 2021, pp. 239–330; Bánkuti 2024, pp. 9–11).

At the local level, the reception of these macro-level events—which effectively paralyzed Church functioning—tended to centre around the upheaval caused by land redistribution and population movements (expulsions and resettlements). National-level political events generally appear in the sources only through brief references, without commentary, functioning more as contextual markers. The diocesan centre is typically mentioned only when a personal connection exists (e.g., a priestly appointment or resolution of a local issue). In the relationship between the ecclesiastical “court” (aula) and the “periphery” (the local, parish-level base), we find not only expectations for assistance from the centre but signs of an autonomous sense of clerical role and the local enactment of subsidiarity: local challenges could be answered only with locally appropriate responses. Evaluative descriptions tend to focus on local experience and, at times, assess general phenomena through this lens. These assessments suggest that the local reality grasped by parish communities stood in contrast to the broader categories perceived by the diocesan centre; local perspectives were shaped by only a few identifiable clusters of facts. Even if national political developments and other external forces created overlapping and interpenetrating structures, they did not necessarily become defining factors in the internal life of individual parishes. To use an exaggerated example: the incapacitation of a bishop might fundamentally affect the functioning of the diocesan centre, but it need not influence the spiritual life of a single village. Consequently, it is unsurprising that the Historia Domus contains only sporadic references to Archbishop József Mindszenty of Esztergom, despite his frequent engagement with ecclesiastical and public matters. The core experiences at the micro level included impoverishment and existential insecurity, generally explained in relation to inflation and forced migration processes. Frequent mentions of weather conditions and anticipated crop yields—also common themes in earlier parish diaries—may serve as indirect indicators of growing uncertainty surrounding basic livelihood. The description of the community’s increasing “politicization” makes these changing conditions even more palpable. Alongside harsh condemnations, we also find noteworthy expressions of concern by pastors worried about the fate of their congregations.

The abolition of the large estate system and the redistribution of land to the peasantry were regulated by a decree issued by the Provisional National Government on 17 March 1945, still under wartime conditions. Although the measure addressed a centuries-old social demand, its implementation primarily served the power-driven reconfiguration of property relations. According to the decree, the Catholic Church—on a national scale—lost 765,684 cadastral holds out of its total of 862,704, without compensation. From the Diocese of Pécs, 45,430 out of 45,889 cadastral holds of Church land were confiscated.12 With the change in ownership, patronal obligations associated with Church properties were also eliminated. As a result of the land reform, ecclesiastical institutions lost their material foundation. In the postwar crisis, and amid deportations and resettlements, collecting Church dues (parish taxes, stipends) became increasingly difficult.13 The Church came to rely heavily on the state and the faithful to supply the resources necessary for its operations. Even so, maintaining the existing institutional structure far exceeded the Church’s financial capacity. In the immediate postwar years, the Catholic Church was operating far beyond its economic limits.

The situation was not alleviated by the nationalization of schools in June 1948—on the contrary, the obligation to provide for dismissed members of religious teaching orders placed an additional burden on parishes. From the end of 1948, the disbursement of the state-subsidized congrua (a form of clergy stipend) became increasingly uncertain. Both the amount and timing of payments came to depend entirely on the will of the Party leadership—creating significant potential for coercion.

“The tithe commutation system failed due to poverty and inflation. During the period of inflation, we agreed with the parish trustees that everyone should bring produce in the quantities that had previously been customary, and those who had wine should bring that as well. Naturally, not even a quarter of them did so.”14

“A devasted country, a corrupted people and, an economy swollen with worthless money, all this marked the beginning of many troubles. The country needed rebuilding, but above all, the souls needed rebuilding. That is why, during Lent, we began saving the souls of the faithful by holding tridua in every village, conducted by Father Antal Hir. The results for spiritual life exceeded all expectations. […] Economically, this year was one of decline. The drought seemed almost unsurpassable. Just as the currency was deteriorating, so too were the prospects for the harvest.”15

“…the settlers do not wish to contribute to the burdens. Twenty-five percent of the distributed tax notices were returned outright. […] Under these dire conditions, the parish is incapable of fulfilling its obligations,” wrote the dean of Dunakömlőd in his 1947 autumn report to the diocesan authorities, summarizing the economic situation of parishes affected by the population exchange.”

“We have already reduced everything to the bare minimum, and still we cannot manage,” wrote the bishop in an unusually frank pastoral circular addressed to the faithful on 14 September 1949. Read aloud in every church in the diocese, the address—born of desperation and the tension between traditional authority and growing vulnerability—alternates between pleading and threatening tones, reflecting confusion and deep frustration:

“This is why I now appeal to you, Dear Faithful, with a heartfelt plea. We have no other option than the devoted, self-sacrificing love of our fervent believers. I foresaw long ago that I would eventually be compelled to do this, but I delayed it as long as I could—until dire necessity forced my hand. I am not asking for myself, but for the Holy Mother Church, whose children you all are. A worthy child cannot ignore the cry of a suffering mother. I know that you too struggle with the difficulties of daily life. I do not expect anyone to take on more than they can bear. […] Whether it be through church taxes, offertory donations, or other forms of giving, everyone will find an opportunity to fulfil their duty. But whoever stubbornly refuses to make any sacrifice for their pastor and Church, and persists in this conduct despite repeated admonitions, thereby excludes themselves from the community of the Church—and should not be surprised if, when the time comes, the servant of the Church cannot render them service.”16

The years 1945–46 brought the most dramatic demographic transformation within the Diocese of Pécs: the expelled German population was replaced by Hungarian settlers from various parts of the country, as well as Székely [Sekler] refugees from Bukovina and Moldavia fleeing the southern territories (Tóth 2008; Gonda 2013). During the multi-phase expulsion process, which extended from May 1946 until the second half of 1948, approximately 60,000 Germans—mostly Roman Catholics—were removed from the territory of the diocese (Szenyéri 2008, pp. 182–85). The absence of these former parishioners was made even more tangible by the difficulties arising from the newly arrived settlers. A parish priest from a predominantly German-speaking village captured the general sentiment with remarkable clarity:

“In the past year [1945–1946], Hungarian settlers have moved into all the German villages of the […] deanery. […] Mostly Csángó Székelys, Communist day labourers, hired hands, shepherds, cotters, carters, miners, and also some Reformed Communist workers who migrated here. […] These settlers and land claimants do not attend church—only very few of them do. We’re not surprised, given that all of them are members of the Communist or National Peasant Party. They reportedly organize dance gatherings every Sunday and on holy days. In terms of cleanliness and diligence, they cannot be compared to our former German parishioners, who, even if not deeply religious, at least regularly attended Mass on Sundays. The new settlers, for their part, refuse even to hear of paying church dues. This year, they have not contributed anything. We are completely stuck regarding parish taxation as well; last year’s land settlement process and inflation made tax collection impossible. We are in a very difficult situation here in the German-speaking parishes.”17

“The implementation of land reform and resettlement continues. But how! The ‘land claimant’ committee—four resettlers and one native resident—takes and gives, distributing without consideration. The property confiscated for the state is being ruined, the land is becoming overgrown, the settlers are politicizing, the Swabians are trembling, and everyone is stealing. […] Religious life fluctuates: sometimes there is a surge of enthusiasm, other times it slackens, as is typical of emotional religiosity. The life of the people is confused, and so is their spiritual life. For the settlers, religion is an unknown concept. […] In the filial churches, the language of worship is mostly Hungarian, with sermons alternating between Hungarian and German. […] In these ever-changing circumstances, I do not involve the ecclesiastical authorities in the matter, lest any solution prove inappropriate or inadequate later. Nor do I bind myself. I allow no one a say in this matter: not the Germans, for they have forfeited their rights—though I keep their interests in mind—nor the Hungarians, who have no right to ‘claim’ here until they become part of parish life and share its burdens.”18

“95% of the population of our village is tormented by the looming horror of expulsion. The newcomers are made up entirely—100%—of refugees and people who themselves have been resettled. Spiritually, they are all broken: lacking faith in God, suspicious of one another, envious, vindictive, and gloating. They are distrustful of their leaders. It is in this atmosphere that the youth are being raised. Last year, we already lodged complaints about truancy. This year, avoiding church and skipping school have become widespread.”19

Returning once again to the macro level, as outlined above in the summary of national-level developments, because of the untenable nature of the situation, the Bishops’ Council eventually resolved, on 20 June 1950, to initiate negotiations with the state without the approval of the Holy See. According to a report by the political police, “The sporadic reactions of lower clergy suggest that the agreement was received with relief. They hope it will lead to an improvement in their financial situation.”20 A similar view is reported by an informant in the Pécs episcopal aula, who noted that the diocesan leadership hoped the agreement would result in “the restoration of previous stipends.”21 But the mirage created by the desperate longing for peace and security quickly vanished in the face of unfolding events. In the summer of 1951, the arrest of Archbishop József Grősz of Kalocsa, the public condemnation of Grősz and other persecuted clergy by the Bishops’ Council, and the creation of the State Office for Church Affairs marked the culmination of the Church’s subjugation to the state. In retrospect, József Cserháti—at that time a theology professor in Pécs and later a bishop—described the condition of the Hungarian Church in stark terms: “We became a harassed, dispossessed, hollowed-out Church that, silenced by external terror, had to grow ever quieter, weaken to the point of collapse, and retreat […] with the terrifying sense that total eradication was only a matter of time” (Cserháti 1990). And yet—how does a portrait of József Mindszenty, Hungary’s last Prince Primate and martyr–archbishop, end up in the living room of one of the diocesan leaders of the collaborating Peace Priests movement?

8. Towards a New Understanding of Vocation—The Habitual Character of Clerical Self-Conception and Practice

What impact did the forced transformation of social configurations have on long-standing, inherited patterns of behaviour? What forms of attachment, relationships, and context-, situation-, and role-dependent possibilities do the practices illustrated above reveal? The recurring features of the texts—their tendency toward systematization, modelling, and the identification of long-term patterns—led me to interpret them in structural terms. In my case, this interpretive framework was approached through the expectations of the studied community’s past present, understood as a shared precondition of experience. This does not refer to some form of collective consciousness but rather to those common preconditions of individual experience through which personal reflections are filtered. By regarding the Catholic clergy as a community of experience and expectation, in Koselleck’s sense, the seemingly irreconcilable diversity of cases could be brought into analytical coherence. It must be noted, however, that what I refer to as common patterns of expectation—let us call it, in simplified terms, a mentality—is not an explicit feature of the sources themselves but the result of historical interpretation. I could approach this interpretive object through only organizing, “structuralist” operations of thought, which are problematic and fallible by nature. Attitudes are shaped by norms; in this sense, praxis becomes the adaptive realization of a norm under specific contemporary pressures. Action can manifest itself only within relations; it is through these that structures are produced. Structure, then, does not exist in and of itself but emerges from the relational dynamics formed within the stimulus-rich plane of locality. How a cleric relates to the configuration that surrounds—and includes—themselves is determined by internalized patterns of behaviour: learned, habitual, and quasiautomatic modes of response. It required no extraordinary insight to observe, within the parish diaries’ reflections on a radically altered configuration, the symptoms of paralysis and disorientation. The anamnesis led me to the concept of habitus, and for the diagnosis I turned to Bourdieu’s model. According to this model, stable positions and dispositions that guide strategies are governed by the socially constituted, internalized habitus, formed through socialization. In other words, habitus produces characteristic forms of praxis. This becomes most discernible—precisely because it is unreflected—in the style of the writing. What emerged clearly in my case was that these dispositions were so stable and deeply embedded that they continued to guide individual practical strategies even when they no longer fit the transformed environment.

Returning to our methodological question: what kind of habitus can we infer from the praxis illustrated above? When Bourdieu interprets habitus as a structured structure, he means that practice is conditioned—structured—by social embeddedness or social position (Hadas 2022, p. 13). As emerges from the sources, the altered circumstances did not fundamentally call into question the priesthood’s own sense of its role. Over time, the Catholic priest had come to represent a defining, respected, and recognized factor within the relational system of rural Hungarian society—but not a part of it. He stood above the local society, representing both divine and secular authority. This role was fundamentally characterized by a paternalistic, “clerical” attitude, with pastoral work framed in terms of a service-oriented, quasicontractual relationship most clearly reflected in the mechanisms of remuneration. At a systemic level, this role, over the course of centuries, did not require a confrontational stance toward the state—nor, by extension, did it cultivate a partner-based, reciprocal, and voluntary relationship with local society.

As the violent dismantling of the socioeconomic configurations that sustained parish life unfolded through state intervention, the clergy—grounded in its own moral and normative order—was suddenly confronted with an entirely different value system and set of expectations, without adequate time or means for preparation. The configuration of deeply internalized clerical dispositions—formed and sedimented over decades and centuries—suffered irreparable damage, especially in the realm of social relations with the laity. The aforementioned disruptions had torn apart the very social fabric in which these stable dispositions had previously served as reliable guides. The consequences were long-lasting. What made the situation particularly critical was that the preference for earlier experiential patterns and behavioural schemas tended to serve the preservation of the familiar milieu to which they had once been successfully adapted—even when these patterns no longer fit the new environment.

From an underview perspective, when reading the Historia Domus entries, it seems insufficient to claim that what followed the passage of the front simply caught the Hungarian Catholic Church by surprise. The reactions can only be understood within the Church’s own temporal horizon—a time structure radically distinct from that of the political, economic, and social systems being dismantled around it. The Church’s “own time” was organized along different coordinates than the secular structures of governance and society, which were being subjected to zero-tolerance, forced transformations that interrupted any sense of organic development. Within the internal life of the Church, the year 1945 brought no essential rupture. There was no “changing of the guard,” no transformation of self-understanding or self-representation, no revision of previously internalized discourses. And unlike secular administration, the diocesan structure, though challenged, remained operational. When considered from a systemic perspective, the churches, including the Catholic Church, represented the sole institutional entity in Hungary that maintained its operations amidst the new circumstances. Concurrently, the structural framework, the “playing field,” and the network of relations underwent a profound reorganization. In a context that could otherwise be described as wholly chaotic, the Church represented—at least for many—a compelling alternative: the image of permanence. Around it, historical time was suspended, dislodged, and the future, controlled in the present, took hold: the plan, the programme, the action.

The new situation required a fundamental redefinition of the Church’s presence in the world. Deprived of its assets and besieged on multiple fronts, the Church was increasingly dependent on direct support from society, even as it continued to draw on dwindling reserves of inherited assumptions and institutional resources—resources that were shrinking, becoming obsolete, or vanishing altogether. What do we learn from the dysfunctionality of these dispositions. By foregrounding the how, my focus shifted to the realities produced through social practices. The performative nature of social action—observable in gestures—points to the dynamic relationship between habitat and habitus. This raises the question of whether the fundamentally homogeneous and reproduction-oriented concept of habitus is adequate for analyzing processes of change and crisis. Is the fundamentally homogeneous, reproduction-oriented concept of habitus suitable for analysing change and crisis? Habitus theory refers primarily to a specific range of socially conditioned practices, namely nonreflective social behaviours at the group level, yet social life is also shaped by numerous actions based on rational decision-making. Without diminishing the importance of rational and reflective behaviour, for the purposes of this research, habitus has proven to be a useful methodological tool. A differentiated understanding22, the concept of cleft habitus refers to internally divided, fragmented, and contradictory forms. Its epistemological significance lies in recognizing that social practice comprises not only rational strategies but actions driven by unconscious, nonreflective impulses (Hadas 2022, pp. 99–100). Following this essentially praxeological line of inquiry23, the concept of the hysteresis effect—or Don Quixote effect—may offer an explanatory framework. It refers to the discordance between habitus and altered conditions: those critical moments of disorientation and discrepancy when actors, constrained by the inertia of habitus, are unable to generate practices suited to the new environment (Bourdieu 2000, pp. 160–61).

This is understandable, given that signs of crisis were not yet visible in the religious behaviour of the faithful. Popular missions and ecclesiastical festivities continued to attract large crowds, and priestly and religious vocations were still increasing. From the contemporary observer’s point of view, the “folk Church” character of Hungarian Catholicism appeared sustainable—maintainable even without major adjustment. All of this contributed to the fact that the open launch of anti-Church “shock” with the nationalization of schools (June 1948) caught the Hungarian Catholic Church off guard—despite numerous prior warning signs. This experience of surprise reveals the role of habitus. The rigid dispositions of a habitus, shaped by earlier patterns, tended to gravitate toward an imagined “order.” There was a tendency to reject new information that might challenge accumulated and internalized certainties. This, whereas in the 1950s, the clerics were the main victims of institutionalised violence among the social categories classified as enemies, in turn, led to divergent assessments of the situation even within the clergy itself. The political regime could—and did—exploit this feature extensively.

The veneration of Mindszenty can be comprehended through an examination of his established priestly norms, which were characterized by a commitment to sovereignty and a readiness to challenge secular authorities. His unwavering dedication to piety and patriotism, coupled with a resolute determination driven by a missionary vocation, defined his character. As a parish priest during the interwar period, Mindszenty actively and autonomously shaped his local environment, utilizing available structures creatively for his initiatives. Following the conclusion of the Second World War, he persisted in adhering to the principles he had previously embraced. In both public and ecclesiastical domains, which he perceived as inseparable, he sought to assert his normative system, now as the Prince Primate of Hungary, acting as a public figure and not merely as a participant.24 Confronted with new expectations, he became more resolute, necessitating a re-evaluation and repositioning of his role. Although seemingly paradoxical, this disposition aligns with that of the Archbishop’s loyalists and contemporaries, who navigated the conflict of ‘double loyalties’ (Fejérdy 2016). This task, undertaken under compulsion, was not uncommon. It involved adapting the habitus to changes in the relational structure of the configuration, guided by previously acquired dispositions. The importance of the pluralization of habitus becomes evident through the process of comparison: by observing how similar effects produce different reactions across varying milieus, one can discern what influences what. In this context, the habitus model serves as a methodological means to characterize the actors involved.

After the First World War, the Diocese of Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár), which had previously belonged to Hungary, became a part of Romania. It was subjected to state measures against Roman Catholics after 1945 that, while broadly following the same pattern as in Hungary, tended more toward the Orthodox state-church model (Wien 2007; Vasile 2003). However, the primary reason for their divergent impact lies not in this ecclesiastical alignment but in how the relationship between Church and state—and between Church and its “national” society—differed from country to country.25 Unlike Hungary, Romania became the most ethnically, culturally, and denominationally diverse state in the region after the First World War. The denominational distribution of the nationalities living there largely mirrored their nationalities, with communities defined by their language and religion linked to different patterns of economic–social–cultural structure. While in the pre-World War I Romanian kingdom, 95% of the population belonged to dominant and official Orthodox Church, the acquisition of Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina significantly altered the denominational relations: 72.6% of the population now belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church, and 14.7%, to the Catholic Church. Of the latter, 6.8% of the total population followed the Roman rite, and 7.9%, the Greek rite. Transylvania played the most important role in this change.26 All in all, two-thirds of the Roman Catholics in Transylvania were Hungarians, with a smaller proportion of Germans, and Hungarians accounted for more than half of all Roman Catholics in Romania. The relatively young Roman Catholic diocese of Bucharest, founded only in 1883, was considered essentially an “ethnic diocese” even by Romanians. And rightly so, since the Germans, Hungarians, and Poles constituted the majority both among the clergy and the laity. In Old Romania, the majority of the population were Greek Catholics, while in Transylvania, the Romanians belonged to two churches that had previously enjoyed equal status. The Greek Catholic Church functioned as the “Romanian Church united with Rome.” In this case, the communion with Rome expressed a sense of belonging to the Western cultural sphere inextricably intertwined with national identity. The Orthodox Church was composed entirely of Romanians, while the Reformed and Unitarian Churches were predominantly Hungarian.

The logic of Romanian state-building—specifically nation-state-building—was defined by the Orthodox model of interrelationship between religious and national identity. The ethnic composition of the Roman Catholic Church, the Hungarian character of the Diocese of Transylvania and its autonomous structure as represented by the Transyl-vanian Roman Catholic Status made Roman Catholicism a challenge for the Romanian nation and state. (The Transylvanian Roman Catholic Status was a unique form of ecclesiastical self-governance of 16th–17th century origin, presided over by the Bishop of Gyulafehérvár but led by laymen.) Church institutions were fundamentally undermined by the agrarian laws implemented between 1919 and 1922, which resulted in the nationalisation of 98% of the land used for church, school, and foundation purposes. The Romanian Constitution of 1923, in contrast to the Romanian national churches (Orthodox and Greek Catholic), established unjust legal discrimination against minority churches. In this double minority position of Transylvanian Catholics, the social weight of the Church increased significantly. Within this context, its social role also increased, primarily because the nationalisation of state schools meant that Hungarian-language education became practically limited to institutions run by the denominations. Finding themselves as minorities, the churches of the Hungarian communities developed differently from those in Hungary, with distinct aspects of their theological and historical traditions gaining greater prominence than in the mother country (Bánkuti 2018, pp. 37–52). The moral doctrine of being loyal to the state—even at the expense of divine order and the promotion of the common good—offered a strategic path of action for a significant part of the Hungarian intelligentsia (Bárdi et al. 2014). The sense of belonging to a discriminated-against community created the conditions for the emergence of a previously unknown form of solidarity, which proved to be an invaluable asset in the decades to follow.

The divergence of national paths in the 1950s made increasingly clear the local configurations of otherwise unified normative expectations. This suggests that the particularities of strategic responses—both ecclesiastical and governmental—were shaped more by the tension between constraints and expectations than by the polarity of freedom and coercion.

Hence, while Hungarian bishops, after the imprisonment of József Mindszenty, hoped to safeguard the Church’s quasifreedom of operation through a “partnership” with the state, relying on past practices and conditions, in Romania, the Roman Catholic Church operated under ex lex (legal vacuum) conditions for four decades (Nagy and Novák 2021). This is not to suggest that legal–rational interpretations alone provide a key to understanding events. Under dictatorship, one must account for deviance, excesses, and arbitrary measures in addition to the letter of the law. Rather, these models make sense only within the broader historical processes that cut across major political caesuras. The attitude of Romanian authorities toward the Catholic Church—especially in comparison with that of other countries under Soviet influence—had uniquely dramatic consequences. With the arrests of Bishops Áron Márton27 (Alba Iulia) and Anton Durcovici28 (Iași), the Holy See’s public hierarchy was effectively dissolved. The complete dismantling of dioceses by the state was also unique. So too was the resulting effect: the resistance efforts organized by Jesuits and Franciscans, with the backing of the laity, successfully paralyzed the state-backed ecclesiastical administration installed after Márton’s arrest (Bánkuti 2018). This resilience stemmed in large part from the Church’s strong social embeddedness and its successful adaptation to strategies developed under minority conditions (Nagy 2021). Over the centuries, the Transylvanian Catholic Church had faced multiple existential threats. These pressures had shaped both the clergy’s mindset and its relationship to the faithful. Emerging from these crises were flexible and innovative coping strategies that “tempered” the local Church, better preparing it for the next round of turmoil. Unlike in Hungary, where the Church’s mentality bore unmistakable Josephinist features, the Transylvanian Church—being less domesticated or state-defined—exhibited different traits. In Church–state relations, it leaned toward a passive model, while in Church–society relations, it displayed greater activity. This double minority status gave rise to an alternative social order—one that could not afford complete abstention from politics. Beyond individual decisions, this explains why its confrontational posture was more adaptive, and its accommodation, more measured.