The lawsuits of the 1670s have become the symbol of Protestant persecution in the historical memory of Hungary. This study focuses on illustrating the lawsuit topics, false
arguments and false evidence, intended to frame a view on Protestants and to take
control over on a wide range of Protestant society. My aim is to show how a conspiracy
by seemingly lawful means was managed step by step.

The Hungarian protestant ministers who had been baselessly charged in 1673 and 1674 by
a special court at Pressburg with rebellion, treason and defamation of the Catholic Church
were sentenced to death. Those who converted to Catholicism or promised to leave the
country could escape. Those who persisted were sold at Naples to Spanish galleys as
slaves. The ministers asked help, among others, from the Netherlands. As a result of efforts
of many persons the States General instructed in November 1675 admiral Michiel de
Ruyter to liberate the galley slaves. After their liberation in February 1676, they were in
exile in Zürich. Eight of them visited the Netherlands in the autumn of that year to try to
get diplomatic and financial support so that they could return to Hungary in order to
continue their ministry. The Netherlands helped them a lot in both areas. Lots of books
dealt with their story in the 17th and 18th centuries in the Netherlands. Later they became
more and more part of the memory place ‘Michiel de Ruyter’.

In the long 18th century described as the period of “peaceful Re-Catholicization” or
“Catholic Restoration” in the writings about the ecclesiastical history of different
congregations, the Roman Catholic Church used every means to push Protestants into
the background and to render their lives impossible. As a result of intensified ReCatholicization, diverse means were employed to confront the communities and
individuals, from the occupation of churches or schools and collective punishments,
through the public humiliation and terrorization of individuals, to bloody torture and the
annihilation of their livelihood. The partly violent spreading of Catholicism resulted in
many controversial cases in the Carpathian Basin, which were reported on many
publications in Western Europe. The examination of the early printed books in the
Lutheran collection of books in Halle (Franckesche Stiftung) has brought numerous
relevant texts from a Hungarian perspective to the surface, which allow studying the
danger-fraught life circumstances of Protestants in the Carpathian Basin in the 18th
century through the eyes of an external observer.

Michiel de Ruyter is a Dutch national hero. He is respected in Hungary as the liberator of
the Protestant galley slaves. Since 1895, his name can also be read on the memorial behind
the Great Church of Debrecen. De Ruyter has appeared in various forms in Hungarian
memory during the centuries: either as a fearless soldier, a faithful Christian or as a symbol
of reconciliation. His memory keeps changing but his spirit keeps living on in Hungarian
memory.

Within his work on Protestant church history, Péter Bod’s translation of the galley slaves’
history was one of those 18th century Protestant historiographical approaches, which
bound the image of the struggling Church to personal sacrifice for the true faith. In 1738,
he translated Bálint Kocsi Csergő’s Narratio brevis, i.e. the history of the galley slaves’
suffering, into Hungarian, entitled Siege of a House Built on a Rock. Although it was a
manuscript, it became a bestseller copied and read all over the Carpathian Basin. Later,
the image of the Protestant martyr was identified with what he delineated in his works
God’s heroic Holy Mother Church and St. Heortocrat, namely, a martyr is an individual
who, in the midst of persecutions and fleeing, does not grow weary in being of use for the
benefit of his nation, his Church, the common good. In his works on church history, many
inventories of suffering from the 16th and 17th centuries demonstrate his utilitarian view of
martyrdom. The secularized view of martyrdom identifies the notion of suffering for
religion with the struggle that he himself fought against the Habsburg censorship. The 17th
and18th century Protestant history of suffering turned into an intellectual commitment that
is unfolding in the midst of difficulties and preserves our nationhood, and can be formed
along the jus and bonum publicum (public good, and public law). 

Sárospatak is a prominent academic town in eastern Hungary, where three memorial
plaques were unveiled between 1936 and 1939 in memory of the galley slaves. The college
itself is a place of remembrance, representing 500 years of Protestant culture. There are
memorial plaques here to the school’s patrons, former teachers, scholars, and the many
traumas of the 20th century (World War I and II, Trianon, the Gulag camps). It is therefore
surprising that, among the eight other memorial plaques located at the entrance, three
plaques commemorate the galley slaves. The study explores the context of their creation,
the idea, the application, and the unveiling, and interprets the phenomenon. The history of
galley slavery contains not only religious but also national elements of memory, and was
suitable for depicting the world of great cataclysms and tragedies in every age, as well as
for analogically showing the ways of escaping from them.

New Hungarian choral works were born on another jubilee, i.e., on the 300th anniversary of
the Protestant galley slaves’ liberation. They are the ‘little sisters’ of the oratorio Budavári
Te Deum, these cantatas are in the order of their completion: Sándor Szokolay: Cantata to
the Memory of the Galley Slaves, Lajos Vass: Furor Bestiae, Zoltán Gárdonyi: Memento.
Composers use the text written by Ferenc Otrokocsi Fóris and other galley slaves who
records the story of his deportation, sufferings and liberation. The last two pieces of music
were composed in October 1975 and dedicated to the choir ‘Kántus’ of the Reformed
College of Debrecen. Their world premiere took place on 11 February 1976 in the Reformed
Great Church in Debrecen, in the framework of festivities dedicated to the anniversary of
the liberation of the galley slaves, the conductor was the writer of this article.

In the years of 2020–2021 I made a few short films with some people – one tourist
organizer and four preachers – who have found it important to preserve the memory of
Hungarian galley slaves. In this report, I would like to show the responsibility, respect and
love that the commemorators had for their ancestors, which spirit of this activity was also
radiated to me.

The article seeks to encourage reflection about the creation and development of a cult
status in Dutch culture: in the Dutch past, but also in the present. It focuses on the case of
Michiel de Ruyter (1607–1676). He has long been represented as ‘zeeheld’ (naval hero),
but his status as hero is currently under scrutiny in the Netherlands. The article dissects
cultural representations of De Ruyter to explain why he turned from a typical exponent of
the seventeenth century ‘zeehelden’ into a – criticized – exponent of the Dutch merchant.
It also briefly explores the possibility of yet another turn in the way De Ruyter is memorized culturally in the Netherlands. Could the memory of De Ruyter, and more in particular
his linguistic and literary skills, serve as a shield against the growing illiteracy in the
Netherlands?

Almost unbeknownst to virtually anyone, the fragments of a monument commemorating
the liberation of galley slaves by Michiel de Ruyter lay for years in the parking garage of
the Reformed Theological Seminary in Pápa. Originally, this memorial stood in the
courtyard of the military academy, the Zrínyi Miklós Nemzetvédelmi Egyetem (Miklós
Zrínyi Defense University) on Üllői Street in Budapest. It was erected in 2002 to commemorate the liberation of the Hungarian ministers who had been sentenced to the galleys
and were freed by Michiel de Ruyter in Naples in 1676. The monument was designed and
created by Colonel Dr. Lajos Berek, who was also the rector of that university. When this
military academy moved to the campus on the Hungária ring road in 2008, the old building
was sold. The monument was taken down. The Bolyai János Honvéd Alapítvány (János
Bolyai Defense Foundation) donated the memorial to the Protestáns Tábori Püspökség
(Protestant Military Diocese). The new owner would look for a new location for the statue.
Since there was no place to put it up again at that time, they looked for a place where it
could be stored “temporarily.” That place was the parking garage of the Reformed
Theological Seminary in Pápa. 

The study focuses on the history and historiography of the Hungarian Galley Slaves. The
publication of their story by the Western European press made a huge impact on international Calvinism. In Hungary it went the opposite way, mainly for historical reasons. A
manuscript and its large amount of copies built a great legacy, thanks to the historical
research for the original documents (mentioned in texts by Bálint Kocsi Csergő and Ferenc
Otrokocsi Fóris) between the 17th and 20th century. Thus, the attitude of the Galley Slaves
indeed became a decisive image of Hungarian, reformed identity.