A History of Central Eastern Europe

was, maybe, a half-mile away. A parish was the collection of places of worship under one
person. The priest/minister/rabbi lived in one place and this was the parsonage (or its equivalent)
and the place of worship in his village was the "main church." He would “travel the circuit” to
conduct services at each parish church, though not usually every week. So, Mass may only be held at
your particular village church once every 6 weeks – which meant 5 weeks of Sunday (or Saturday)
travel for every hometown service. Most affiliated churches had their own cemetery and church
building. The various duties such as performing marriages and baptisms or presiding over funerals
were conducted in the congregant’s village church. In many places, this practice still continues.
The accessing of church records where this parish-type existence occurs can be problematic as the
researcher needs to know beforehand how a particular person decided to organize the church
registers. Some would only site the name of the main church without naming the affiliated churches
– making it appear that events took place in one town when, in reality, they didn’t. Others may use
separate registers for each church and all may not have survived. Usually events in all parish
churches were recorded in the same register; these are usually organized by parish name. Another
problem is finding out what constituted a single parish – a church near Hamilton High School West
might belong to the DeCou Village parish while the White Horse Circle church belonged to the
Yardville parish. Of course this would change when there was a change in ministers – when a “new”
minster took over, his village church now became the main church – and it became the “new” parish
name. Without knowing which one is the correct parish and the method used to record events,
trying to locate ancestors can be an exercise in frustration.
HOSSZÚLÁZ was merged with the even smaller SZÉPHALOM (Fair Hill) in 1940 and the result was a
larger SZÉPHALOM and a HOSSZÚLÁZ now relegated to the street sign. SZÉPHALOM had been the
home of the eminent proponent of reforming the Hungarian language, FERENC KAZINCZY
(1759−1831) after he married COUNTESS SOPHIE TÖRÖK in 1804. The name SZÉPHALOM may have
been retained due to KAZINCZY’S fame or because Fair Hill sounds like a place where one might
wish to go while Long Heat does not tend to evoke visions of an idyllic setting! Another reason could
be due to HOSSZÚLÁZ’S lack of churches – SZÉPHALOM had a Roman Catholic Church so it made
more sense to retain that name rather than the one that did not have the church.
SÁTORALJAÚJHELY is the closest “large” town, being about 3.5 miles south of HOSSZÚLÁZ. In 1981
SZÉPHALOM, which included the former HOSSZÚLÁZ, and another village about half-a-mile north,
RUDABÁNYÁCSKA, were merged into SÁTORALJAÚJHELY. HOSSZÚLÁZ, despite being “gone” for 70
years, remains largely intact and unchanged and is easily found: it’s on Hosszúláz utca, less than 1,000
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