012012 - Prešovská univerzita v Prešove

THEOLOGOS 1/2012 | ŠTÚDIE
in the nearby cemetery of Mindszent and asked for the priest’s permission
for the burial and the customary memorial bell ringing. Miklósy would
only permit the burial, if he himself would be allowed to perform it. In
response the relatives of the deceased asked that the Uniate priest of
Görömböly be allowed to hold a mass for the dead according to the Greek
rite in the presence of the widow’s coffin lying in state at the church of
Mindszent. But Miklósy refused to allow it. Then the Greek Catholic priest
turned to the Minorite Fathers, who allowed the Greek rite Mass for the
Dead to be performed in their church. Thus the family was forced to
bury the deceased woman in the more remote cemetery. Events such as
this and others increased the sorrow of the Greek Catholic believers; and
Bacsinszky developed his plan to transform the church at Mindszent in
order to comfort the faithful and fundamentally to alter the situation.
The idea thoroughly upset Miklósy, who was well aware of the
example of the former Jesuit church at Ungvár. After the Jesuit order was
disbanded Maria Theresa gave the building to the Munkács bishopric for
use as a Greek Catholic episcopal cathedral. The Catholic priest painted
a sad picture of the rebuilding of the church at Ungvár and detailed
incidents of iconoclasm. Pásztélyi indignantly rejected the unfounded
insinuations and pointed out that only those furnishings had been removed
from the church at Ungvár that were completely incompatible with the
requirements of the Greek liturgy. He further noted that no one need
fear that the ecclesiastic objects to be removed from Mindszent would be
taken to Görömböly, because the Greek Catholic church there already had
an altar, a pulpit, icons and a baptismal font. Nor could Pásztélyi accept
Miklósy’s recommendation that a common church be built at Miskolc with
two altars, because this would not satisfy the interests of the Greek faithful.
A comparison with the situation at Görömböly is illustrative. There
the Roman Catholic Abbot of Tapolca established a separate parish for
the handful of Catholic rite faithful. But here it was no longer simply
a case of satisfying the local needs of Roman Catholics, because Bishop
Eszterházy believed that schismatics lived at Görömböly, who needed to
be brought into union with Rome. Pásztélyi strongly protested against the
accusation that the Ruthenes at Görömböly showed inclinations toward
Greek orthodoxy, and thereby simultaneously denied that the Catholics
there needed their own independent Catholic parish. He expressed serious
doubts about Miklósy’s assertion that 199 Catholics lived in the village,
because the census of the abbot had only recorded six Latin rite serfs who
lived on the property. The argument over the numbers of believers did
not, however, lead any resolution.
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