Debrecen got first into conflict with the leaders of the Catholic Church after gaining the Free Royal City title (1693). During the parliament of 1712–1715, both the legate of the chapter of Várad and Imre Csáky, the Bishop of Várad considered the possibility of the moving in of the Catholics and the building and running a Catholic church and school as the prerequisite of winning the title of Free Royal City. Based on the effective assistance provided by bishop Imre Csáky, the building of the church and the management of the school was taken over by Piarists. The Catholic church was built by 1746, and was sanctified by bishop Miklós Csáky. As the monarch, Maria Theresa caused harm to the Reformed population in several fields. She banned the financial aid of the Reformed Church, the press, and the College, she limited, and during the Seven Years’ War, banned the students from attending foreign universities which she also connected to the possession of a passport. Although only 3,4% of the city’s population comprised Catholics, by 1776 she achieved that half of the 12-member council be appointed without election as Catholic members of the council. Besides appointing the Chief Justice (the only remaining right of whom was jurisdiction), she ordered the election of the mayor responsible for finance and administration, and one of these two leaders had to be Catholic. During the reign of Joseph II, favourable opportunities opened for the representation of Protestant interests based on the tolerance regulation, and this tendency continued with the publication of the 26th law Article of 1791. During the parliamentary sessions, the Calvinists of Debrecen and its neighbourhood played a serious role in the law debate. The above situation demonstrates that by the end of the century, the problems and grievances of the inhabitants of Debrecen became important ingredients of the country-wide conflicts of Calvinists and Lutherans.

Many of the pastors and teachers of the Lutheran Slovak congregation, who comprised
more than 2/3 of the population of the rebuilt Nyíregyháza, studied in Eperjes, from
where they brought with themselves not only knowledge, but life philosophy and perspective, as well. Some of the local children also became Eperjes students.
Mostly urban intellectuals and craftsmen carrying different functions enrolled their sons
into the College, which also was a Lutheran-Reformed intellectual-social centre. They
gained the lower and higher level knowledge, and made acquaintances with the children
of the noble families of the region, which meant fruitful opportunities for the city for
later times, as those children later became influential potentates in administration, politics, and social life. The inhabitants of Nyíregyháza considered the College of Eperjes their own, which
they thought of as a professional guide, a helper of their education, therefore they supported it with money, as well as farm produce.

The areas Hungary gained back from Czechoslovakia and Romania between 1938 and 1940 considerably expanded the formerly split Reformed Church District of Tiszántúl. This justified the enumeration of the parishes and pastors, which was ordered by the 6712/1941 episcopal circular. By the examination of the source material made available thereby, I undertake to process the autobiographies – mostly from 1942 – of pastors from Debrecen’s neighbourhood, Érmellék, and the dioceses of Bihar from a social historical point of view. I draw conclusions for the history of the ecclesiastical society based on the analysis of altogether 114 autobiographies from the 3 studied dioceses. In the first analytical unit of the study, I examine the age and place of birth of the pastors. Next, starting out from the professions of the fathers, I study which layer of society the pastors might have had come from. In the last section of the study, I analyse the educational areas of the pastors writing the autobiographies.