ABSTRACT
The Reformed Church in Royal Hungary was granted institutional autonomy and legal sanction to hold church services by its Habsburg rulers. However, the Reformed Church operated during the early seventeenth century within a context of political weakness, as a minority faith facing Lutheran and Catholic competitors and a hostile royal court. The religious liberties of Lutherans and Calvinists in Hungary were secured after the 1604 revolt of nobles led by the Calvinist István Bocskai against the Habsburg King Rudolf. The rights granted to Reformed and Evangelical churches by the 1608 Diet were almost threatened by the Court's backing for a campaign of re-Catholicization across the region. Protestants in Royal Hungary had coexisted within a single church structure during the latter half of the sixteenth century. The divergence between the two Protestant groups was reflected in doctrinal statements which were agreed by rival synods. In 1598 a synod of clergy in Sopron County agreed on canons which highlighted their Evangelical sympathies.
