The Kádár Regime and the Subduing of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy

Abstract

“Warding off clerical reaction” was arguably the most contradictory aspect of repression by the Kádár regime. From the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. In its aftermath, and until the end of the 1960s, dozens of proceedings against Church figures were instituted that resulted in heavy prison sentences; from the beginning of the 1970s, by contrast, this was the sole area in which overt state security intervention (i.e., conspicuous house searches or legal proceedings) almost never took place. Under Janos Kádár’s regime, all religious denominations were persecuted, with the security service even paying special attention to sects such as the Hare Krishna movement. The biggest successes, however, were achieved in the case of the major historical denominations, as a result of which the Reformed Church (the Calvinists), the Lutherans, the Jewish community, and the Roman Catholic Church lost virtually all of the independence they had previously enjoyed.