012012 - Prešovská univerzita v Prešove

Baán István
priest or congregation before 1726. In 1746 a canonical visitor from Eger
noted that “during this century the Greeks, ever since they have been at
Miskolc, have always had their own Greek priest.” 4 Consequently it would
appear that from the very beginning the Greek merchants were careful
to retain a cleric who would minister to their spiritual needs. But how
large was the congregation? It would appear obvious that we should be
able to find a close correlation between the documentation for individuals
and the formation of the congregation. But we have no such data for the
early part of the eighteenth century - Marjalaki believes that before 1711
there were only a handful of Greeks in the town 5 - and so it would seem
reasonable to assume that the start of formal record keeping coincided
with the establishment and organization of the parish.
The Orthodox Chapel
Nearly all of the priests on the list are described as “parochial priest
(chaplain) of St. Naum.” This saint is not to be confused with the Old
Testament prophet Nahum; instead he is St. Naum of Ohrid. Originally
a Bulgar, St. Naum was born around 830 and died at Sveti Naum on the
banks of Lake Ohrid on 23 December 910. In 868, when they traveled to
Rome together in order to be confirmed in their mission, Pope Hadrian
II had consecrated the future St. Naum a priest, and he became a fellow
proselytizer in Moravia with Cyril and Methodius, the apostles to the Slavs.
After Methodius died Naum was imprisoned in Moravia; later in 886 he
was allowed to go to Bulgaria with Clement of Ohrid and Angelarii. Naum
then became head of a group of writers and translators at Preslav; and in
893 he became Clement’s heir as educator and evangelist to Macedonia. St.
Naum became a monk on his deathbed and was buried in the monastery
of the order he had founded. He had spent the last years of his life there. 6
Naum proved to be particularly popular in southern Macedonia, 7 the
region from which many of the Greek traders had come to Miskolc. Thus,
it is understandable that they dedicated their chapel to his memory.
The aforementioned canonical visitor noted in the records of his
visitation that “there was here a private Greek rite prayer house but on 28
4 Egri Főegyházmegyei Levéltár [The Archive of the Eger Archdiocese] (henceforth EFL)
Arch. Nov., no. 3412: Canonica visitatio Comitatus Borsod 1746, 110.
5 Marjalaki (1960), op. cit., 549.
6 R. Browning, “Naum of Ohrid,” in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (New York and
Oxford, 1991), I, 1442.
7 M. D. Peyfuss, Die Druckerei von Moschopolis, 1731-1769. Buchdruck und
Heiligenverehrung im Erzbistum Achrida, Wiener Archiv für Geschichte des Slawentums
und Osteuropas, Bd. 13, (Wien-Köln: Böhlau, 1989).
12