Journal articles on the topic 'Hungarian Prayers'

This article presents the Hungarian manifestations of a written devotional practice that emerged in the second half of the 20th century worldwide: the rite of writing prayers in guestbooks or visitors’ books and spontaneously leaving prayer slips in shrines. Guestbooks or visitors’ books, a practice well known in museums and exhibitions, have appeared in Hungarian shrines for pilgrims to record requests, prayers, and declarations of gratitude. This is an unusual use of guestbooks, as, unlike regular guestbook entries, they contain personal prayers, which are surprisingly honest and self-reflective. Another curiosity of the books and slips is that anybody can see and read them, because they are on display in the shrines, mostly close to the statue of Virgin Mary. They allow the researcher to observe a special communication situation, the written representation of an informal, non-formalised, personal prayer. Of course, this is not unknown in the practice of prayer; what is new here is that it takes place in the public realm of a shrine, in written form. This paper seeks answers to the question of what genre antecedents, what patterns of behaviour, and which religious practices have led to the development of this recent practice of devotion in the examined period in Hungarian Catholic shrines. In connection with this issue, this paper would like to draw attention to the combined effect of the following three factors: the continuity of traditions, the emergence of innovative elements and the role of the church as an institution. Their parallel interactions help us to understand the guestbooks of the shrines.

Abstract Body part names are productive sources of metaphoric and metonymic expressions, which constitute coherent constructions in the languages. These cognitive cultural models are subconsciously known to all cultural community members (D’Andrade 1992). In the paper, I explore how culture influences the conceptualizations of body parts. The theoretical framework is Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2017), which investigates cultural conceptualizations in language. The data and analysis presented here consider the uses of ‘hand’ and ‘hair’ metaphors and metonymies in Hungarian archaic prayers, which represent a specific subculture mingling elements of the Christian religion with other (pagan or shamanistic) belief systems. The corpus of the study is Erdélyi’s collection of 321 archaic prayers (2013 [1976]), from which all representations of ‘hand’ and ‘hair’ are selected and conceptually analysed. The results show that 1) the figurative functions of the two body parts partly correspond to metaphors which are also found in secular Hungarian (e.g. hand for help, hand for care, hand for action); however, in the archaic prayers, they often take form in specific meanings (hand for help to get into heaven, hand for providence, hand for control); 2) their figurative uses strongly rely on cultural schemas which are attached to people and events. It is concluded that the body parts under consideration have fundamentally different cultural models in prayers than in secular usage.

The focus of my study is a mid-seventeenth-century Latin manuscript prayer book. Its most basic characteristics should attract the attention of scholars of the period since it was compiled by a Lutheran married couple from Prešov for their individual religious practice. In examining the prayer book, I was able to identify the basic source of the manuscript, which was previously unknown to researchers: the compendium of the German Lutheran author Philipp Kegel. The manuscript follows the structure of Kegel’s volume and also extracts a number of texts from the German author’s work, which mainly collects the writings of medieval church fathers. In addition to Kegel, I have also been able to identify a few other sources; mainly the writings of Lutheran authors from Germany (Johann Arndt, Johann Gerhardt, Johann Rist, and Johann Michael Dilherr). I give a description of the physical characteristics of the manuscript, its illustrations, the hymns that accompany the prayers, and the copying hands. I will also attempt to identify the latter more precisely. The first compilers of the manuscript were Andreas Glosius and his wife Catharina Musoniana from Prešov. I also organize the biographical data we have about their life and will correct the certainly erroneous provenance of Andreas Glosius, whose name appears in the context of several important contemporary manuscripts, including the gradual of Prešov. In the last part of my paper, I will also show how well known and popular Philipp Kegel’s work was in the early modern Kingdom of Hungary. This is necessary because, although the data show that there was a very lively reception of Philipp Kegel’s work in Hungary, previous scholars have only tangentially dealt with the Hungarian presence of his work.

By the end of the 17th century, the Ottoman Empire power had been expelled out of Hungary. At the same time, the death of the King of Spain, forecast the end of the “Western” Habsburg Empire. Emerging economic nations England and the Netherlands wanted to create a new balance of power in which the Principality of Transylvania was also concerned. The Spanish War of Succession ended with the peace of Utrecht, which created a modern style of diplomacy. Ferenc Rákóczi II realized the chance of Hungary’s independence in a rearranging Europe, thus he started his war of independence. One of the spectacular social rise families of the era was the Vay family. Adam Vay wanted to be out of the war of independence. However, when the imperial troops burned down Gács Castle, he joined Rákóczi. Rising to the rank of general, Vay went to exile with his family in Poland after the peace of Szatmár (present-day Satu Mare, Romania). In exile, not only deprivation but also disease threatened them. Typical for the manorial courts of the era, scholar and lay healers worked together. His well-read wife, Anna Zay, began writing herbarium following this tradition. She tried most of the recipes he collected among the personnel of her house. Her work was circulated as a manuscript copy, which preserved the 16th – 17th-century Hungarian medical language. For the people of this era, above the battlefield injuries, the most feared disease was the plague. For Zay, prayer strengthened her endurance, helped her bearing much suffering and sorrow and provided hope to be freed from her exile. God speaks to man through the word, but prayers speak to God.

AbstractThis study is a representative text written as part of the project “Hungarian Literary Culture in a Transcultural Perspective”. It aims to convey to readers versed in other cultures the effects of the first complete text in the Hungarian language, the “Funeral Oration and Prayer” (Halotti Beszéd és Könyörgés), as an element of the living literary tradition manifesting in writing and reading. The study consists in a commented and annotated version of the basic text that will serve as a basis for the chapters adapted to the specificities of the different language versions of the book. The text gives a brief overview of 12th century Hungarian texts, and then introduces several 20th century Hungarian poems that share as their precursor the “Funeral Oration and Prayer”.

"Identity pins down accurately who individuals are in relation to God, society, and themselves. God’s statement about Himself (His self-identity) in the Bible “I am who I am” can guide us to find our own “I am who I am”, definitely taking into account the analogia relationis rather than the analogia entis. The constant domi-nant of our human identity as God’s identity as well is that we stay humans despite all circumstances, but its features (“our qualities”) are variable. We are only interested in two of the many identity features: our denomination and our Hungarian ethnici-ty, which are “only” features, but as such they have been decisive. In the 20th centu-ry, we, as Reformed Protestants and Hungarians, got under the burden of the polit-ical and ecclesiastical consequences of the two world wars. Our faith required that the church and the Hungarians did not lose their identity features from the per-spective of the communities and individuals. During the interwar period (1920–1944) and during the totalitarian regime (1945–1989), we, Transylvanian Re-formed Protestants, had one single duty to fulfil: clarify our relationship vis-à-vis the political authority in such a way as to remain disciples and a disciple church without which we are not the ones who we must be. In his prayer, Jesus does not ask the Fa-ther to take all of his followers out of this world (meaning society) but rather to de-fend them from evil (John 17:15). How can we fulfil it? Our yes/no answer is the issue of gratitude towards God and penitence before Him. Keywords: the content of identity, energy of the protective spirit, dominant church, non-democratic church, valve system."

Considerations for the Study of Anonymous’ Gesta From the Perspective of Historical Orthography Anonymous’ Gesta Hungarorum has been studied by both historians and linguists for a long time. Both disciplines have produced an extensive set of scholarly publications relying on a great variety of approaches that study the gesta and its mysterious author. I examine the Hungarian remnants (and Latin language elements of Hungarian relevance) of the gesta from the perspective of historical linguistics. In this paper I focus on the aspect of historical orthography more specifically. In my study I start out from the dating of the linguistic record at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries which is claimed to be most probable by linguists and it facilitates my work that there are several important linguistic records available from this age that are contemporaries of the gesta and which are clearly authentic and include abundant Hungarian language data. The certificate of confirmation of crusaders of Székesfehérvár from 1193 and the Tihany Survey of 1211 are the primary sources in this respect but the historical-orthographic features of the Funeral Sermon and Prayer may also be used in the comparison. Although the genre differences between charters and the narrative historical work obviously result in a different source value in terms of legal authenticity and thus also “onomastic authenticity”, research in historical linguistics in the broader sense of the term is only slightly influenced by this circumstance (or not at all). Meanwhile, I also compare the orthography in Anonymous’ gesta with the general orthographic attributes of the era(s) that are seen as possible dates for the creation of the gesta (around 1217 and in the 1160s-70s) so as to provide additional linguistic arguments for one or the other possible date. After the articulation of the findings of my research, I finally formulate general lessons learned that are related to the source value of different genres of linguistic records (including gestas) from the Árpád Era in terms of historical orthography, while also shedding light on certain details of contemporary written culture.

The Slovak National Archives in Bratislava contain a large manuscript catalogue of an extensive book collection formerly located in one of the numerous residences of the branched aristocratic family Ziči, namely in Voderady near Trnava. The manuscript catalogue, entitled Catalogus Librorum Bibliothecae Vedrodiensis 1894 [A Catalogue of the Books of the Voderady Library 1894], presents a library which, according to information from the 19th century, contained about 12,000 volumes. In the catalogue, the books are divided into 19 thematic groups: theological works and prayer books, linguistic publications, dictionaries and manuals, periodicals, works on arts and crafts, Hungarian novels and short stories, German and Italian novels and short stories, French novels and short stories, English novels and short stories, the works of literature of other European and domestic provenance as well as ancient classics in various editions, memoirs, historical works, geographical literature and travelogues, natural-science publications, works on sports, specialised works on horse breeding, works on economy, legal and political works, and prints referred to as special works. This paper focuses on the thirteenth thematic group of the Voderady library, namely geographical literature and travelogues (Földrajz, Útleírás). This has been motivated by the fact that members of the Ziči family, the owners of the Voderady residence Jozef Ziči (1841–1924) and his brother Augustín (1852–1925), enjoyed not only travelling around Europe but also exploring distant exotic lands. Consequently, this group contains 717 registered titles, forming the largest group of the Voderady library. The presented literature in Hungarian, French, English and German comprises a wide range of works including travelogues, atlases and maps, tourist guides, manuals and professional geographical publications of both domestic and foreign provenance.

Banat Bulgarians are a special descendant of the centuries-old tree of the Bulgarian ethnic group. Descendants of the displaced from Nikopol and Svishtov after the rout of the Chuprov’s uprising in 1688, they have lived in Banat for 281 years and have preserved their language, traditions and Bulgarian consciousness. Despite their affiliation to Catholicism, they continue to be referred to as “palkene” as a remembrance of their Pavlikian past. After Bulgaria's liberation from Turkish slavery, some of the Banat Bulgarians returned to their homeland, again seeking subsistence and a better life, and founded the villages of Dragomirovo, Gostilya, Bardarski Geran, Bregare and Asenovo. Banat Bulgarians use their own language, which they call "Palken". His writing is based on the Croatian Latin version, and preserves many ancient forms of the language spoken in Bulgaria. The main principle in the Bulgarian Palken spelling is phonetic, ie. it is written as it is pronounced. In lexical terms, there are many borrowing from the Banat Bulgarians from German, Hungarian and Serbian, which is due to the close contacts of Banat Bulgarians with other people in the multi-ethnic Banat. Despite the foreign influence, the dialect form and the use of Latin instead of Cyrillic, the Banat Bulgarians emphasize the Bulgarian character in their language. The Bulgarian Palken language is used in literature, the press, the church and the media with minor differences due to the different dialects. In the period 1860-1896 it was the main language of teaching in the Bulgarian school in Banat, from 1896 to 1918 it was replaced by Hungarian, and then – by Romanian or Serbian. In Bulgaria, the Palken language was functional in the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Today the Banat Bulgarians have turned their dialect in a second Bulgarian literary language, publishing a large number of textbooks, calendars, books, prayer books, newspapers and magazines, through which the few who know and use the Palken language seek to influence others in their community and save it from destruction and oblivion. Nowadays, this language continues to be alive and real in the culture and everyday life of Bulgarian families who have migrated from Bulgaria due to historical circumstances more than two hundred years ago in Serbian, Romanian and Hungarian Banat. This report examines the specifics of the graphical system of the Bulgarian Palken language by comparing them with the modern Bulgarian language.

This article is dedicated to the interpretation of the header before the text of the Ten Commandments on fol. 150 of the Hval Codex. The author is drawing attention to a gloss in the margin to the left of the banner which has not been addressed in the earlier scholarly literature nor recorded in the facsimile transcription of 1986. The rectangular banner consists of a lozenge net filled with gold lilies while three gold interlace crosses of a complex shape are placed on top of the banner. The gloss next to it was written in blue ink as an abbreviated word under a line. It is a rather common abbreviation from the nomina sacra category (God). The significance of this hitherto-overlooked gloss is extraordinary. It was written in the same manner which was used for adding legends to miniatures or headers in order to clarify images in medieval illuminated manuscripts. Hval wrote similar notes in several margins of this manuscript.The location of the gloss itself points to its function as an explanation of the banner before the words which the Lord communicated to Moses on Mount Sinai. That the text of the Ten Commandments was significant in Bosnian illuminated manuscripts is also attested to by the header before the Ten Commandments in a Venetian miscellany codex, which depicts the narrative scene of the theophany on Sinai while, at the same time, containing a fairly long inscription which clarifies the image. Similar textual clues appear in the Dobrejšovo Evangelie, the most important of which is the one positioned next to the Synaxarion header where the inscription, “this is heaven which is also called paradise”, explains the scene. In the context of such examples, this article discusses analogous material from illuminated manuscripts and monumental painting alike by applying a new approach to the study of function of medieval ornament, while also highlighting the problem of the etymology of the notion of ornament in different languages. The findings resulting from this research show that the function of ornament in a religious context was not just decorative, but that it was used to mark the holiness of a space, that is, the presence of the divinity, which is a phenomenon witnessed in illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings, icons and reliquaries.H. Kessler’s research into Judeo-Christian symbol-paradigms confirms the essential importance of the depiction of the Old Testament tabernacle in the manuscripts of the Christian Topography as a source of ornamental motifs. They can be grouped into a relatively narrow set of symbols, always included in a structural system: star-shaped schemes, fields of flowers, interlace and lozenge nets as well as chequers. Their origin is found in the coffered vaults of classical tombs and temples where they represented the sky and Elysium. They were transported to medieval art through identical motifs which were painted in the catacombs and early Christian basilicas. It is these exampes that constitute a formal template for the header to the Ten Commandments in the Hval Codex the meaning of which is, therefore, a symbolic depiction of the Word, Logos, as the source of God’s Ten Commandments, which is why the banner was marked with a corresponding gloss.The article also pays attention to an unusual illumination in the Gospels of Jakov of Serres because it also witnesses that a grid with floral motifs possessed a special meaning to educated medieval men. The portion above the head of Metropolitan Jakov, formed by a band of a lozenge net with flowers, has been described in the scholarship only as decorative, that is, as forming a floral background, but, given that its position and shape both conform to signifiers of heavenly kingdom in Byzantine manuscripts of the Christian Topography, it is erroneous to interpret it only as a floral background and a mere ornament. In this case too, the lozenge field filled with flowers denotes the Empire of God to which Jakov directs his prayers. Therefore, when one studies ornament in a religious context, it is necessary to use a more precise language, one which is rooted in the manuscript material itself. A concrete evidence for such a practice can also be seen in the colophon of this manuscript because the scribe who wrote it compared all of the decoration in the codex to the starry sky of a theological rather than actual kind.Other notes in the Hval Codex margins are also mentioned in the article. Some of these record the name of the manuscript’s commissioner who was addressed out of respect as uram (Hungarian for “my sire and master”): Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić, Grand Duke of Bosnia and a Herzog of Split. The article emphasizes the need to study more closely the location of glosses and all other marginal notes within the codex, and highlights the fact that the two notes recording the name of the patron were placed next to the Gospel sections describing Christ’s healing miracles which, generally speaking, figure prominently in Christian art and exegesis. Furthermore, the article also analyzes the previously-unpublished illumination which depicts Moses in front of the Burning Bush, the branches of which were rendered as interlace ornament resembling a labyrinth. The rendition of the Burning Bush as interlace stemming from the floral frame of the header is a unique example which demonstrates that medieval art did not consider ornament as a meaningless arabesque but that it frequently functioned as a signifier.

This paper analyzes the newly discovered archival documents and materials of periodicals focusing on the development of the Orthodox movement in the second half of the 1920s. As an example, the author singled out two localities where Orthodoxy manifested itself yet in the early 20th century. Emphasis is placed on the fact that over this period in Subcarpathian Rus no Orthodox jurisdiction was established and there was neither bishop nor administration. All these facts used to lead to chaos and disorder within the Orthodox movement. The author argues that the population who decided to leave the Greek Catholic Church did not wish to comply with the outdated Austro-Hungarian legislation. It was indeed discriminatory and needed immediate reform. Based on the archival documents, the paper suggests that local and central authorities did not pay sufficient attention to the religious issue in the region. Due to the study of the sources it can be asserted that the government officials and the President of the Republic did not have a well-elaborated position on resolving a possible religious conflict in Subcarpathian Rus. Ignoring the population’s legitimate demands for the allocation of premises for prayer meetings, led to the forcible seizure of churches and church property. The paper analyzes the content of the appeals and memoranda to the President and government officials in Prague, in which the Orthodox Christian population offered their vision of resolving the difficult situation. The Greek Catholic clergy’s position as well as the bishop’s position on the Orthodox movement are studied separately. The author traces the behavior of Orthodox priests in the mentioned localities. It has been concluded that the radicalization of the relations was caused by ordinary believers who did not want to follow the clergy’s instructions. This issue is insufficiently explored and requires further research.

In my paper I provide a review of recent Hungarian research on early modern devotional literature. While the studying of sermons from the period between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries has already been started in the Communist era, texts of prayers and meditations were not sufficiently examined, even though Zsuzsanna Erdélyi has published various crucial works on archaic Hungarian prayers since 1974. However, in the last few decades several Hungarian research projects, conferences, monographs, volumes of studies and text editions have been published, the historiographical reading of which is one of the main objectives of the present essay. I also wish to survey some foreign publications on these prayers and meditations which might encourage further Hungarian research.

Martin von Cochem (born as Martin Linius) was a dominant figure of 17th and18th century Central-European prayer literature and devotional prose. To my knowledge, research on his literary activity in Hungary has so far been limited to one work only: Makula nélkül való tükör [A Mirror free from Mortal Taint] (first Hungarian edition: Nagyszombat/Trnava, 1712). The oeuvre of this Capuchin monk, who became a best-seller author of his time, consists of thirty-four basic works and their serial editions had stayed continuously in print with different titles until the 1950s. His life-work has largely influenced the genres and the theoretical framework of early modern Hungarian devotional literature. The Hungarian edition of Martin von Cochem’s prayer book entitled Mennyei követek avagy Sz. Gertrudis és Mechtildis égböl vött imádsági [Heavenly Messengers or Celestial Prayers of Saints Gertrude and Mechtilde] (1681), followed the Latin and the German editions ten years later (Preces Gertrudianae). My paper points out the changes both in the structure and content of the Hungarian translation. This work is known with six Latin and German title variations. Previous research has already identified more than fifty editions. I add nearly forty new editions to this corpus, existing under three different Hungarian titles (Mennyei követek [Heavenly Messengers], Len kötelecske [Flax Rope], Az két atyafi szent szüzek Gertrudis és Mechtildis imádságos könyve [Prayer Book of the Two Saint Virgins, Gertrude and Mechtilde]), and I also touch upon the approximately two hundred year-long reception history of this work in Hungary.

The seven works of Tarnóczi István (1626–1689) written on Hungarian are prayer- and meditational books. Some recent research on devotional literature is mentioning the passage between the genres in these texts: how the meditation is mixing with other kind of pious texts (prayer, catechism, etc.). This study examines the specific realization of this in the literary work of the Jesuit writer. It represents the changing mode of treatiselike, didactic texts with meditations, prayers. This paper also investigates the role of the presumed reader layer, how it influences the stylistic and rhetorical aspects of these books. The main message is usually transmitted through several chapters as a didactic treatise, which is followed by practical exercises: prayers and meditative texts formulated in first person. The scriptural references, the indications and quotations of religious and secular writers, the thesis-like parts containing expressive and colorful examples contribute to the comprehension, which is a condition for good deeds. The frequently used expression of „practicing the presence of God” is both an intellectual work and a volitional action. On one hand, the prayers formulated in first person deepened the meditation, while on the other hand through these the theological message could reach more easily the pious reader.

I argue that widowhood (often called “orphanage” in early modern texts) was an important metaphor of the contemporary Hungarian Calvinist Church. Several prayers, prayer books, congregational songs, jeremiads and sermons represented the martyrdom of the Church (and of the Hungarian nation as well) as a “helpless widow”, and lamented in her name. This cultural and rhetoric pattern was created and prescribed for the communities by several early modern texts, and were based on scriptural quotations from the Old Testament. (For instance: “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!” Lamentations 1, 1) I examine this metaphor not only in late seventeenth century texts, but also in the eighteenth century, when authors could not write openly about the Calvinist Church because of the new and increased censorship of the Habsburgs and the Catholic settlers in Transylvania. The representational patterns of Calvinist women in the eighteenth century is explored in this study thorough the example of countess Kata Bethlen.

While we can consider the difficulties of using the cultural trauma theories for texts produced before the nineteenth century, and several hurried interpretation resulted misapplication of these approaches to early modern history and litearature, in this essay I intend to introduce a new British research project, and try to frame by cultural trauma theory and its critics. British state prayers, fasts and thankgivings (1540s–1940s) is managed by a research group of the University of Durham, United Kingdom. Participants investigate the tradition of national state prayers, fast or humiliation days, thanksgiving days and national days of prayer.Special church services were organised and prayers were read in all parish of England as well as Scotland, Ireland and Wales. In particular dates or periods (epidemics, war, famine, rebellion, good/bad harvests, royal births etc.) the King/Queen, the government, and the archbishop of Canterbury, or other church leaders officially ordered special acts of national worship. Prayers and sermons presented the nation as a sinful community, and urged them to practice repentance, because it was thought that calamities will come to an end only, if people convert themselves to God. The research group in Durham is investigating when and how these occasions ordered (by proclamation, privy council order, or by royal request).From the aspect of cultural trauma theory I compare several official religious interpretations of particular events, and try to highlight the pressure of the authority (monarchy, government) on their political and/or religious counterparts on the one hand, and the battles for special events of national memory on the other hand. Cultural trauma theory offers some formulations for explaining the ’working through’ of political crises and natural calamities from sixteenth to twentieth century, and show us how to consider consequences of devastating loss and pain of a community, whether national and/or religious.Interpretation of these crises as prompt and continuous reaction to a traditional, Biblical language, may help the community to explain the cathastrophic events, and to develop a necessary condition for working through. This means that there is no latency, which might causes and signs cultural trauma.Using trauma theories and its critics, I try to find possibilities to transform this international research for a future Hungarian investigation.

This article deals with one of the most well-known prayers in the practice ofMongolian Buddhism. The text was composed by Luwsandambīǰalcan (T.blo-bzang dam-pa’i rgyal-mtshan), the main figure of Mongolian Buddhism,also known as Öndör gegēn Janabajar, the first bogdo or bogdo gegēn orǰewcündamba xutagt (1635–1723). In addition to his works of art and hisrole in creating the special characteristics of Mongolian Buddhism, including unique lama robes, special ways of recitation and melodies, as well asceremonial texts written by Mongolian lamas and a special ceremonial system, he had composed many important texts, several of which are still usedduring the ceremonies today. Of these, the prayer published here in translation is chanted every day, while other texts are used during certain annualceremonies in all Mongolian monasteries. The present article describes theceremonial texts composed by Öndör gegēn, but concentrates on the mainprayer composed by him, its background, and its use in the Mongolian ceremonial system, also providing a Hungarian translation.The text is entitled Jˇinlaw cogzol (T. byin-rlabs mchog-stsol), i.e. ‘(Giving)the greatest blessing’, which is the Tibetan title of the beginning of the text indistorted Mongolian pronunciation. In Mongolian it is abbreviated as Adistid,‘Blessing’, being the Mongolian translation of the beginning of the text; or, inits original Tibetan title in distorted Mongolian pronunciation, Düitünǰi soldew(T. dus-bstun-gyi gsol-’debs), ‘Prayer in accordance with the time’.The purpose of chanting it is harmonious life, to clear away obstacles, aswell as to put an end to or to calm down any kinds of crisis, disorder, conflict,or fighting, and to reach harmony and peace. This is clear from the text itself,and also obvious from the historical background described in the article. The‘bad times’ or crisis (T. dus ngan, in Mongolian translations cöwīn cag, ‘timeof decadence / decline’, mū cag, ‘bad times’, or munxag cag, ‘dark times / Abstracts 171times of ignorance’) mentioned in the text refers to the time when the prayerwas composed, as well as to our time, meaning a dark era when the Buddhistteachings are present only to a limited extent or not present at all. Therefore,due to ignorance the sins and transgressions of the beings multiply, leadingto more and more suffering. The prayer was written during the time of thewars between the western and eastern Mongols (Oyrad and Khalkha), involving much victims and sufferings. The aim of the composition was to showthe way out of the difficult wartimes, to stop it by means of the Buddhistteachings and the power of prayer, to unite the fighting Mongols, and to helpthem achieve peace in this way.The translation is from the Tibetan origin, using four modern Mongoliantranslations. Two translations into classical Mongolian are known, but theyhave rather literary value as they are not used in the ceremonial life – nor arethey used Mongolian translations during the ceremonies in general, since Tibetan remained the ceremonial language of Mongolian Buddhism. The modern Mongolian translations are either from the classical Mongolian translations or from the original Tibetan. The significance of the prayer is born outby the fact that it also has three commentaries (T. ’grel-ba) in Tibetan.

Although in recent years there has been an upsurge in the research of the history of early modern spirituality, this research has paid hardly any attention to the Unitarian denomination. The reasons for this lie beyond the scope of the present study: between the late 16th century and the late 18th century the denomination had to refrain from the use of printing, and thus, the manuscript versions of prayer texts were threatened by loss and destruction. It is a unique paradox, however, that the first edited protestant Hungarian prayer book of considerable length was published precisely by this denomination in 1570/1571. The first part of the paper explores the concept of the prayer book based on Johann Habermann’s famous Gebetbüchlein, and compares it to the greatest achievements of the same sort within this period, the Catholic Péter Pázmány’s and the Calvinist Albert Szenci Molnár’s works. This section is followed by a survey of the vivid reception of Heltai’s work, with particular focus on the way the Unitarian author’s work was used in the Lutheran community of Lőcse. The concluding part argues that building on the foundations of this tradition, as well as on the heritage of Calvinist prayer culture, an unparalleled Unitarian prayer literature developed in the 17th-18th centuries, which deserves the attention of comparative research.