role of churches in preserving national identity
After 1920 the churches had the most comprehensive network of institutions operating in the Hungarian language in the territories annexed from Hungary. To date, this is the independent institutional platform with which Hungarian national minorities communicate most widely in their mother tongue and which enjoys the greatest trust in the community. In the period between the two world wars, land reforms in neighbouring countries and changes in church organisation weakened these Hungarian denominations considerably. In Romania Hungarian-language education became predominantly a church responsibility, but churches were also the main organizing institution in other areas of local minority communities. In the communist dictatorship after the Second World War churches were severely restricted and placed under state control. The exception to this in the Hungarian-speaking territory was the Roman Catholic Bishopric of Transylvania (Romania) – the Diocese of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) – which refused to give up the independence of the church and its loyalty to the Holy See.
It is also due to this specific function of preserving national identity that Hungarians living beyond the borders of Hungary have considered themselves religious to a greater extent than Hungarians living in Hungary (in 2000). In contrast to 54% of the adult population in Hungary, 65% of Hungarians in Slovakia, 66% in Transylvania (Romania), 72% in Vojvodina (Serbia) and 83% in Subcarpathia (Ukraine) claimed that they were religious. In 2011 45.9% of Hungarians in Romania identified themselves as Reformed (Calvinist) and 40.8% as Roman Catholic. At the same time 69.2% of Hungarians in Slovakia belonged to the Roman Catholic Church while 15.3% of them claimed that they were Reformed. In 2017 65% of Subcarpathian Hungarians were Reformed (Calvinist), 18% Roman Catholic and 12.5% Greco-Catholic. In 2002 it was estimated that 88% of Hungarians in Vojvodina were Catholic and 5.7% Reformed. Half of Hungarians in Croatia, 90% of Hungarians in Slovenia and two thirds of Hungarians in Burgenland (Austria) belong to the Reformed Church.
From the point of view of church organisation one of the decisive processes is the internal integration of the Hungarian Reformed (Calvinist) Churches. As a result of the process started in the summer of 2004 a unified constitution was adopted in May 2009 by the four Districts in Hungary and the two Districts in Transylvania as well as by the Reformed Churches of five other countries.
On 28 June 2012 the Synod of Kolozsvár (Cluj) declared the unification of the Unitarian Church of Transylvania and the Unitarian Church of Hungary as the Hungarian Unitarian Church.
Another important development is that in August 1991 city of Gyulafehérvár was declared an archdiocese (archbishopric). The revitalisation of the Roman Catholic Church in Subcarpathia began with the visit of Cardinal László Paskai of Esztergom on 25 May 1989. In 2002 Pope John Paul II elevated the former Apostolic See to diocesan status and appointed a diocesan bishop as its head.
Until 1998 two thirds of the Hungarian Catholics in Slovakia belonged to the Archdiocese of Pozsony-Nagyszombat (Bratislava-Trnava). By the turn of the millennium, under pressure from Hungarian believers, Hungarian-speaking vicars were appointed in all dioceses and a bishop was appointed in the Diocese of Nagyszombat (Trnava) to provide pastoral care for Hungarian believers. At the same time Hungarian believers continue to fight for the establishment of an independent Hungarian bishopric.
In the public sphere the leaders of the Hungarian churches in Transylvania play a key role. Bishop László Tőkés’s resistance as a Reformed pastor in Temesvár (Timişoara) sparked the Romanian revolution in 1989. Today the two largest Hungarian foundations in Romania are headed by pastors. Franciscan monk Csaba Böjte directs the work of the Saint Francis Foundation and Reformed Bishop Béla Kató is heading the Sapientia Foundation, the operator of the ecumenically founded university.