Religion

The earliest Hungarian colonies and the most recent agglomerations rarely had true community or organized life. Members usually set up formal institutions and created the sort of social and cultural infrastructure existing in the old country.

Of particular importance was the need to create organized religious life. On the prairies, only the largest and most prosperous colonies could set up parishes or congregations of their own. Roman Catholic communities were dependent on the Canadian hierarchy, which at first resisted the creation of “ethnic” parishes (Welland, Ontario and Stockholm, Saskatchewan, were early examples, followed about mid-century by Hamilton, Montreal, and Toronto) and which rarely assigned priests of Magyar origin. Protestants were more likely to establish an active congregation of their own, sometimes helped by the missionary efforts of, for example, the United Church of Canada. Such a congregation might function within a Church of All Nations sponsored by the United Church, or under the aegis of a Hungarian bishopric encompassing much of North America. Some attracted Hungarian ministers from the United States or directly from the homeland.

In the early years, most groups of immigrants lacked Hungarian religious life or were served by itinerant missionaries. Visits by clerics from Hungary would inspire large-scale community celebrations. Most Hungarian communities lacked funds for a parish and were made up of followers of two or even more denominations. Some practised inter-religious cooperation, even ecumenism. Roman and Greek Catholics often held joint services, and Calvinists and Lutherans regularly set up joint congregations, but cooperation between fundamentalist Protestants and the main-line Reformed churches was rare, as were joint Catholic-Protestant ventures.

In the inter-war period the most influential Hungarian Catholic parishes had Magyar priests assigned to them, while ministers, many of them recently arrived, served Protestants in the west. Some men of the cloth received their training in Canada. Both the United and Presbyterian churches recruited clergymen to serve ethnic congregations. In urban centres in central Canada, communities occasionally had non-Hungarian priests, or they had priests or ministers who served several centres. At the Church Union of 1925 some Hungarian congregations joined the new United Church of Canada, others remained Presbyterian, and still others joined the Lutheran or the Reformed Hungarian churches of North America.

In the rural areas, where land was inexpensive, churches were built with donated material (mainly logs and mortar) and labour. In small towns, halls could be rented or services could be conducted in a non-Hungarian church. Many of the more prosperous communities later acquired church edifices of their own. A few, such as the Roman Catholic stone church of Kaposvar, Saskatchewan, and the double-steepled Calvinist church of Bekevar (near Kipling, Saskatchewan), were buildings of distinction.

Early community life was connected to the local church. Religious services were almost invariably followed by impromptu gatherings and supplemented by picnics, Sunday school classes, and dances for young adults. Some churches established lay organizations to provide basic financial services, sick benefits, and life insurance to members. In some communities that lacked organized religious life, a lay organization might hold social functions and provide a sick-benefit scheme.

Social life revolved around the traditional Hungarian feast days and national holidays, some attracting people from far away. Christmas would be the focal point for Catholics, and Easter for Protestants. Everyone would observe harvest festivals and national holidays, such as 15 March, the anniversary of the outbreak of the anti-Habsburg revolution in 1848.

As well, Hungarian pioneers gathered to mark important family events. The bride’s family would stage a wedding amid lavish entertainment, as in the villages of Hungary. The religious ceremony was followed by the traditional giving away of the bride and a seemingly never-ending feast. In more prosperous communities such an affair could last several days. More sombre, but equally well-attended and time-consuming rites would accompany funerals. In remote mining centres, where Hungarians had to rely on the occasional visits of Hungarian-speaking priests or ministers, social and cultural life would be leaner and consist of perhaps a party at someone’s residence or in a small hall rented for a dance or for a wedding or anniversary.

By 1995 most Hungarian communities possessed Hungarian houses of worship, although in some places of early settlement church services in Magyar have been declining. Some priests and ministers have been remarkable individuals. The Reverend Ferenc Hoffmann served a vast region of Saskatchewan, travelling from one congregation to the next on horseback, visiting Hungarian and other immigrant communities whose languages he spoke. A trained agronomist, he dispensed more advice on husbandry than on religious life in the Hungarian-language journal that he edited for the United Church. Ambrosius Czakó, an ex-Catholic priest who became minister of the Church of All Nations (United Church) in Toronto, had a keen interest in fine art and wrote polemics against the right-wing regime in Hungary. Later, he returned to the priesthood and became professor of art history at St Mary’s University in Halifax. Their contemporary, the Roman Catholic priest Pál Sántha, served in Stockholm, Saskatchewan, where he prepared a scholarly history of his district’s Hungarian colonies.

Among the post-World War II refugees were so many priests, ministers, and dedicated women that Canada’s Hungarian communities quickly overcame their previous shortage of religious leaders. Members of a Roman Catholic order, the Sisters of Social Service, performed exemplary work in Hamilton, Montreal, Stockholm, and Toronto. These men and women gave solace and support to their persecuted brethren behind the Iron Curtain, and even trained priests in Canada, with the hope that they could someday return to a free Hungary.

The religious leaders of the community have provided guidance – often beyond the spiritual – for their immigrant flocks. Their enthusiastic reception of newcomers, especially in times of political crisis such as the winter of 1956–57, helped new arrivals enormously. But the churches also gave spiritual sustenance, advice, and information on a continuing basis, promoting immigrants’ adaptation and integration. They also assisted in group maintenance, by offering Magyar-language schooling for the young and by catering to parishioners’ social needs.