„gives you the Holy Spirit of Him, leading to the true belief” An attempt to nouance the process of reformation in Kisvárda

Abstract

The study examines the biography of one of the most important patroness of the Hungarian reformation: Kata Várday, regard to the process she became reformed and alongside this, the reformation of the church of Kisvárda.

Contrary to the historiography that has been dealing with the question so far – based on Arnold Ipolyi’s dissertation and accepting its paradigms – I believe that Kata Várday grew up in the Reformed faith since she was a child. At the same time, I examine the Reformation of the church of Kisvárda: The earlier literature puts the date of this – accepting Ipolyi’s assumption, which, in my view, is not sufficiently substantiated by facts – as 1605, the supposed date of Kata Várday’s reformation. On the other hand, I argue that the late-medieval –  early modern church of Kisvárda accepted the Lutheran and later Calvinist teachings of the Reformation in an organic process.