# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S374
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

374 The Lutheran Church in Hungary.

...the government is entitled only to confirm the superintendents. The congregation alone determines the salaries of the pastors, the assistant pastors, the schoolteachers, and the elders of the presbytery. The presbytery stands under the chairmanship of the local pastor concerned, at whose side a layman is also to preside; subordinate to the presbytery are the offices of the congregational treasurer and of the deacons. Above the presbyteries stand the conventions. Next come the seniorate conventions, where the presidency, too, is held jointly by a clergyman and a layman. The pastors, however, also represent their congregations at the seniorate conventions. The seniorate convention is to be convened twice yearly. In the superintendency conventions the lay element predominates, since the gymnasium directors, too, and one gymnasium teacher each, take part alongside an equal number of clerical and lay members. At these superintendency conventions the examinations of candidates and the election of the consistory councilors are carried out, as well as the safeguarding of the rights belonging to the competent church in this instance. The synod may be held every six years. The general synods will no longer, as heretofore, be attended by royal commissioners in the sense of §4 of Article 26 of the law of 1791 (Patent §43, 44). The general synod comprises the whole body, of which the lay deputies form three-fifths. The presidency belongs to the longest-serving superintendent. The members of the seniorate consistories, consisting of an equal number of laymen and clergy, are appointed by the seniorate conventions, while those of the superintendency consistories are appointed by the superintendency convention. At the head is to stand a general conference — consisting of the superintendents and lay inspectors, as well as of the deputies of the superintendency conventions — as the supreme ecclesiastical administrative authority, which the Emperor appoints. Out of the four superintendency districts hitherto existing, six are to be formed topographically: the Pest, Pressburg, Ödenburg, Eperies, Sáros, and the New-Werbász superintendency.

The school system is to be regulated in connection with the church. The closer regulation of the matters pertaining thereto is reserved to church legislation (Patent §12). Instruction in secular subjects is to be arranged, to the same extent as is the case with regard to the Catholic public schools, according to the general regulations issued or to be issued by the government with full preservation of the confessional character of the schools (Patent §13).

So much, in brief, concerning the content of the patent.

With the greatest joy this imperial patent was welcomed among us in Hungary by all men whose heart beats warmly for the Lutheran church as such. Not so, however, by those Protestant nobles, clergy, and professors devoted to the Enlightenment and to the mania for Magyarization; these resisted the acceptance of the patent in every way possible, since they saw clearly that through it the church as such