Szász: Református egyházi elit a 19. században

 Reformed Church Elite in the Nineteenth Century: The Deans of the Trans-Tisza Reformed Church District

Abstract

Examining the members of the nineteenth-century Reformed church elite from a social history perspective, the study focuses on deans, as the leaders of the mid-level ecclesiastical administrative units, the church districts. It scrutinizes the family background, education, spouse’s background, and the life trajectories of the children of 47 deans from four church districts. Both in terms of qualifications and ancestry (forebears of intellectual and noble bacgrounds), the deanery stood out from the rest of the clergy. The research concludes that the clerical profession was becoming a broadening channel for upward social mobility over the course of the nineteenth century. Many of the children of deans chose higher-prestige lay professions and married into such families. However, at the same time, the demand for the self-reproduction of the clerical order was in decline.