Pázmány, Peter

PÁZMÁNY, PETER. - Cardinal, theologian and controversialist, restorer of Catholicism in Hungary, b. at Nagyvárad (Grosswardein) on 4 Oct. 1570, d. at Poszony (Pressburg) on 19 March 1637.

Educated in the Calvinist heresy by his father, vice-regent of Bihar, he abjured it at the age of 13 (1584) in the Jesuit college at Kolozvar under the influence of the first Hungarian Jesuit, S. Szantó, and at 17 (1587) he entered the Order at Cracow. After completing his philosophical studies in Vienna, he moved on to the Collegio Romano for theology (1593). In 1597 he was assigned to Graz as professor of philosophy; in 1601 he returned to Hungary as a preacher; two years later he went back to Graz as professor of theology for 5 years, there becoming an able and unassailable polemicist through his study of the works of Bellarmine; in 1607 he was summoned by the cardinal archbishop of Strigonia as adviser and collaborator, thus opening for him the way to a broader and more effective action against the "reform". P. gave his adversaries no rest and became their terror, no one daring to invite him to a disputation or to accept his challenge. To the spoken word he wished to add the written, publishing various works in a classic Hungarian style. Already in 1603 he had composed a Reply to the book of Stephen Magyari, preacher of Saruár, on the cause of the decline in Hungary, who blamed the "papists" for it; in 1604 he translated the Imitation of Christ into Hungarian; in 1605 he published Ten Demonstrations on the Falsehoods of Present-Day Science; in 1606 a book of prayers, still in use today; in 1609 Five Letters to Peter Alvinney; but the work that struck heresy to the heart, demonstrating its scientific inconsistency, was the Hodogus. Guide to Divine Truth (15 vols., Pressburg 1613), in which his polemical writings (about 40 works) are collected, the most splendid Hungarian apology for the clarity of its form and the effectiveness of its argumentation. Having returned in 1616 from Rome, where he had been sent for the question of the college of Nagy-Szombat (Tyrnau), he transferred to the Somascan Congregation, without however taking vows there, and this by the will of the Pope and with the assent of his superiors, so that his assumption, as a professed Jesuit, to the ecclesiastical dignity, which he had bound himself to renounce, might not take place. He always considered himself, in fact, a member of the Society of Jesus and maintained its manner of life, regarding the transfer to the Somascans as a pure formality. He was thus immediately promoted (24 Nov. 1616) to archbishop of Strigonia and primate of Hungary, and in 1629 elected cardinal.

Of his new dignity P. availed himself to consolidate and deepen with energy and abundance of means the restoration of the Catholic faith. From 1629 he held a diocesan synod every year; and he gathered two national synods during his episcopate; the publication of the diocesan Synod of 1629, to which he added fundamental dissertations on the privileges of his Church and on the monastic Orders, earned him the title of father of the historical criticism of the Hungarian Church (cf. K. Peterfi, Sacra concilia ecclesiastica... in regno Hungariae, 2 vols., Vienna 1742). His zeal was also directed to the founding of institutes for youth and the clergy; besides freely supporting the German-Hungarian College of Rome, he opened in 1624, in Vienna, the Pázmaneum college, still flourishing; in 1631 the first permanent Seminary and in 1635 the University of Nagy-Szombat (Tyrnau), entrusting all three Institutes to the Jesuits. The University had at first only the theological-philosophical Faculty; but it was later enlarged with the Faculties of law and medicine through the work of the empress Maria Theresa, who in 1777 transferred it to Buda; Joseph II, in 1783, moved it to Pest.

P. served religion and his country also through political influence, remaining faithful to the Habsburgs, in whom he saw the only earthly bulwark of the Catholic faith, and neutralizing the offers of the Sultan, who promised the autonomy of the country merely in order to take possession of it. He was also sent to Rome (1632) by the emperor Ferdinand II to counterbalance the influence of Richelieu and to dissuade the King of France from the alliance with the Swedes. If he did not obtain everything, he did however receive from Urban VIII promises of help for the Emperor (cf. A. Mednyánszky, Legatio Romana, Pest 1830). To P., moreover, the Habsburgs owe both the consolidation and perhaps even the preservation of the throne of Hungary; if he had not, in fact, checked the irruption of the Protestants into Hungary, wresting the noble and powerful families from heresy, the dynasty could not have sustained itself there. Of P. it was said that, born in a Protestant Hungary, he died in a Catholic Hungary. The University of Budapest and the Association of Catholic Writers were dedicated to his name.

Stefano Markus-Celestino Testore