The author analyses Croatian and international historiography on the Greek Catholic diocese of Marčanska (Svidnička or Platejska) since the early 1990s, emphasizing that the increased interest in ...this topic at that time was partly driven by the political changes in Croatia and its surroundings. The topic has been in the focus of interest of historians dealing with the Military Frontier (Krajina) and the Catholic Church as well as authors of the syntheses of the history of Croatia and the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia. A number of scholars in Croatia have accepted J. Šimrak’s conclusions about the success of the union in the early 17th century as a consequence of the wider Union movement and the responsibility of the Vienna court and some Zagreb bishops for its failure. On the other hand, foreign historians have accepted conclusions about the Habsburg religious policy from Austrian historiography written in the second half of the 19th and the early 20th century, repeating stereotypes and inaccurate data that were not scientifically evaluated, such as the hypothesis about the Jesuits as the main factors in the expansion of the union and the constant Catholic pressure on the population of the Orthodox frontier region, allegedly carried out by the Krajina commanders. Only a few historians have indicated the unsustainability of these hypotheses and pointed out that the Frontier was a desirable settlement area for Orthodox Christians from the Ottoman Empire. There are noticeable differences among the scholars as to the interpretation of the beginnings, motives, and reach of the union, as well as different understandings of the basic concepts concerning this issue, and due to the lack of relevant studies and the use of unreliable older historiography, these 18th-century events have been described very scantily and inaccurately, especially the reign of Charles VI. Croatian historiography has made some progress in researching this topic and some scholars have critically assessed the said historiography, highlighting its shortcomings and observing the history of the union and the Diocese of Marčanska in the broader context of the history of the Military Frontier and the Habsburg religious policy in Southeastern Europe. Their research results have corrected some inaccurate data on the bishops of this diocese and presented Habsburg religious policy as more complex than the previous historiography did, opening new research topics such as the conversions and the Catholic renewal in Krajina, to which a more detailed scholarly analysis has yet to be done.
The author analyzes text of Statutes of Vlachs published for frontiersmen/Grenzers of Varaždin Generalate in in the 1732 in latin and kajkavian variant of Croatian language and compares this document ...with the older one, the Vlach Statutes / Statuta Valachorum from 1630. year. The aim of this new document was to redefined
obligations and rights of frontiersmen in Varaždin Generalate after a long period of
social and religious disturbances during first three decades of 18. century. Author
points out that the appearance of this document must be considered in context of
military reforms in Varaždin Generalate made by Count Caspar Ferdinand von Cordua. He reorganized military structure of Generalate establishing new military
units, but reducing the pay of frontiersmen and raising of pay for officers was not
acceptable for frontiersmen. Styrian estates although opposed his reforms warning
Vienna court that financing of Varasdin Generalate under this circumstances was useless and that well established and equipped frontiersmen army cam also represent potential threat for Monarchy. As for a new Vlach Statutes, they like the old
Statuta form 17th century had not consider religious and ecclesiastical issues, but restricted frontiersmens right of free disposition of posessions and forbade buying
out military service. Most important change was nomination of military judges (auditors) in seat of every of four captaincies, which have accomplished the duties of
previouse supreme judge and eight assessors. Auditors solved different complaints of frontiersmen, including those against military captains (vojvode), and vojvode have got the possibility of making final decisions in quarrels which can be solved without official judicial procedure. Although Vienna Court supported Cordua’s plans and promulgated them in 1733 they have been accepted only partialy, but reforms caused disturbancies and resistence of frontiersmen and new Statuta for frontiersmen of Varasdin Generalate were not officialy proclaimed because authorities wanted to keep peace in Military Frontier.
The aim of this study is to analyze the discussions around the possible reunion of the Protestant churches with the Roman Catholic Church in the territory of the Holy Roman Empire of the German ...Nation and in Hungary, initiated by the Franciscan Cristóbal Rojas y Spinoli as a representative of the court in Vienna, as well as the achievements of the ecclesiastical union between Orthodox Christians and the Roman Catholic Church in the territory of Upper Hungary, Transylvania, and the Croatian-Slavonian Military March during the reigns of Leopold I and Joseph I. It is emphasized that the Protestant churches considered the major obstacles to their reunion with the Roman Catholic Church to be the papal primacy and their excommunication at the Council of Trent, as well as the accusations of heresy. Thereby the ideas of Irenicist theologians had a considerable impact during the second part of the 17th century. They sought to overcome the schism by underlining the common Christian foundations, leaving the debates on dogmatic issues for some future times. Attempts at achieving a reunion between the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church were also supported by the Catholic converts around Johann von Schönborn, prince elector and the archbishop of Mainz. The Franciscan Spinola and his collocutor on the Evangelical side, theologian Gerard Wolter Molanus, were of the opinion that the Catholic-Protestant union should be achieved through an ecumenical council, but while Spinola planned to reach an agreement with the Protestants and bring them back under the wing of the Roman Catholic Church before the general church council, in which they could then partake as full church members, Molanus argued that the reunion must be discussed at the very council, where both sides would participate as equal parties. Both acted as the representatives of secular rulers and saw the reunion talks as an issue of cabinet policy and secret diplomacy. They considered it acceptable that their political leaders should choose the theologians who would take part in the negotiations, and they saw their churches as institutions of the early modern absolutist state governed by secular rulers. Spinola’s negotiations with the Hungarian Protestants failed because the Protestant estates managed to secure their legal position and ensure free confession of their faith, which is why they abandoned the idea of negotiating about the reunion with the Roman Catholic Church. The negotiations also failed because of the crucial differences in the understanding of the sacraments, the Mass, and the priestly office, as well as owing to the lack of support by the parties involved: for example, the Roman curia did not support any reunion talks that it had not initiated itself, while the Hungarian Catholic hierarchy blocked or ignored them.
The Greek Catholic (Uniate) Dioecese of Marča (called “Svidnica” by the Vienna Court and “Platearum” by the Roman Curia) was established in 1611, when Greek Catholic Bishop Simeon Vratanja was ...consecrated in Rome. He assumed obligation to unite Orthodox frontiersmen (Vlachs) of the Croatian and Slavonian Military Border and other Orthodox Christians in the Hungarian- Croatian Kingdom with the Catholic Church. In order to become a Greek Catholic or Uniate bishop, Simeon had to accept decrees issued by the Council of Trent, and especially to recognize the primacy of the Roman pope, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, the existence of Purgatory and the use of unleavened bread in liturgy. Although the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom was declaratively pronounced as Bishop Simeon’s jurisdictional territory, in fact his jurisdiction spread predominantly over the Croatian and Slavonian Military Border, where the Orthodox Vlachs had been settled ever since the late sixteenth century. The monastery of St. Michael in Marča in the Varaždin Generalcy (the Slavonian Military Border) became the see of a new Greek Catholic eparchy. Having analyzed available sources about Simeon’s prelacy, the author concludes that motives and circumstances of Simeon’s acceptance of union with the Catholic Church cannot be clearly recognizable, and that the majority of the Orthodox population in the Military Border did not accept union with the Catholic Church in the spring of 1611, as some historians have previously claimed.
Autor analizira knjigu engleskog povjesničara R. Okeya o austrougarskoj vladavini u BiH i njegovu tezu o habsburškoj civilizacijskoj misiji kao sredstvu obuzdavanja balkanskih nacionalizama 19. ...stoljeća, ponajprije hrvatskog i srpskog. Naglašava Okeyevu naklonost političkim idejama Benjamina Kállaya i Istvana Búriana i ističe posebnosti njegove interpretacije metode i ciljeva srpske politike u BiH te političkog djelovanja vrhbosanskog nadbiskupa Josipa
Stadlera. Zaključuje da će Okeyeve teze u dijelu hrvatske i bosanskohercegovačke znanstvene javnosti izazvati različite reakcije.
The history of the Greek Catholic Bishopric of Marča written by the Slovak scholar
Ján Čaplovič (Johann von Csaplovisc) in 1819 is by and large based on the
Serbian Orthodox Church legend of the ...Bishopric of Marča as the first Serbian
Orthodox episcopate in the Habsburg Monarchy, and of the freedom to profess
Christian Orthodox religion on the territory of the Military Border until 1670,
when the Court in Vienna, the Roman Catholic Church and military commanders
began a forceful attempt to unite the two churches. Their activities arguably
provoked rebellions and a violent treatment of the opponents of the union in the
first half of the eighteenth century. The monastery and the church in Marča were
then taken away from the Orthodox population of the Military Border. Čaplovič’s
conclusions, as well as numerous erroneous chronological and biographical data
about the bishops of Marča that lacked confirmation of the archival sources, were
then adopted by the later historians of the Military Border in the nineteenth century
(A. Stojačkovič, J. Schwicker, F. Vaniček). These authors furthermore accepted
the wrong and tendentious view of the French historian E. Picot, who argued
that Jesuits were the main proponents of the united church in the Military Border,
that they encouraged military commanders to implement an intolerant religious
politics and that they persuaded some of the bishops of Marča to support the
union. Through the work of Vaniček and Schwicker, the conclusions of Čaplovič
and Picot became part of the twentieth century historiography and were used by
overseas historians such as E. G. Rothenberg, K. Kaser, M. Tanner and J. Fine.
They depicted the Habsburg Monarchy as an intolerant state in which Jesuits
crucially informed the politics towards the Orthodox population of the Military
Border. Yet according to the relevant archival sources, the chief advocates of the
union were the Zagreb bishops. The military commanders opposed the bishops’
proposals to unite the two churches because they feared rebellions in the Military
Border. The Court in Vienna agreed with the military commanders and rejected
many of the bishops’ proposals aimed at establishing a church union. Jesuits
were not at all freely active in the Military Border; on the contrary, they visited
the area rarely and, when there, never encouraged discussions about the church
union precisely because they feared negative responses of the local population.
Unfortunately, as international historians are entirely unfamiliar with these more
Zlatko Kudelić, Čaplovičeva povijest M 182 arčanske biskupije
recent findings of Croatian historians, the erroneous nineteenth-century arguments
about the religious politics in the Habsburg Monarchy that originated in
the work of Ján Čaplovič are still in currency. The state of the historiography will
only be changed if further, comprehensive research of the church and religious
history of the Croatian-Slavonian Milita
In this article author presents a report of an anonymous Jesuit. This report about
frontiers’ mutinies in 1658 and 1666 is a valuable historical source that contains important
information about ...participation of the Uniate bishop of Marča in these
events, and especially about aforementioned Gabrijel Mijakić. According to this report
all the bishops of Marča in the period between 1630 and 1670 were responsible
for all the uprisings of frontiers because they were political representatives of
all the frontiers and protectors of their privileges commonly known as Statuta Valachorum,
which were kept in the monastery of Marča. Since bishops often interpreted
these privileges vaguely, they in fact encouraged frontiers’ mutinies. Moreover, they
were guilty for the failure of the church union because they did not accept Catholicism,
though they formally accepted it only in order to gain an independent diocese.
In fact they remained Orthodox believers and were subordinated to the patriarch of
Ipek. The author of the report explicitly wrote that bishop Sava Stanislavić directly
had encouraged uprising in 1658. By the same token, he witnessed that Gabrijel
Mijakić indirectly supported Stefan Osmokurovć, who was the leader of the mutiny
in 1666. Moreover, anonymous Jesuit claimed that Mijakić also gave shelter to the
rebels after the mutiny was put down. However, this failure of the rebellion forced
Mijakić to start spreading union among Vlachs, to organize Catholic schools for
frontiers’ Orthodox youth. Finally, Mijakić also accepted to go to Rome to be formally
appointed to his duty by pope, since he was so afraid when he saw in which
severe manner mutiny was put down by Herberstein colonel of Kriûevci. In this report
Petar Petretić bishop of Zagreb was evaluated as the most important person regarding
the putting down the mutiny. Even before this mutiny Petretić was strongly
against Mijakić’s appointment to the rank of bishop of Marča, since he was not a
true Uniate. However, though Mijakić enjoyed support of some of the nobles from
Slavonia, after he came back from Rome without pope’s inauguration archbishop
of Kalocs and bishop of Zagreb officially requested his replacement and support
of the military authorities. Unfortunately, soon after this request bishop of Zagreb
died, and this prolonged the process of Mijakić’s imprisonment, especially since the
War Council in Graz was not eager to fulfill bishop’s request. According to the report
Mijakić himself provoked his imprisonment in September 1670, since he encouraged
clergy to attack parish priest Pavao Zorčić, who was protégé of deceased
bishop Petritić. Now Mijakić was replaced and new bishop of Marča became Pavao Zorčić, who was not supported neither by clergy neither by Vlachs. This opposition
provoked military authorities to imprison several monks. However, during his time
Zorčić constantly met opposition of Orthodox monks and Vlach who did not want
to accept him as
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