Claim: Peter Pazmany was the soul of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Hungary, and as chief pastor of the Catholic Church, he used every means in his power to obstruct and weaken Protestansim; he founded seminaries in 1619 and 1623 for theological candidates.
Evidence: Péter Pázmány, S.J. The Kingdom of Hungary between 1526 and 1867 was outside the Holy Roman Empire but part of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy that became the Austrian Empire in 1804. Pázmány was to become the soul of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Hungary. As the chief pastor of the Catholic Church in Hungary, Pázmány used every means in his power, short of absolute contravention of the laws, to obstruct and weaken Protestantism, which had risen during the 16th century. In 1619 he founded a seminary for theological candidates at Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia), and in 1623 laid the foundations of a similar institution at Vienna, the still famous Pázmáneum, at a cost of 200,000 florins. (also called de Panasz in some sources; Hungarian: panaszi Pázmány Péter, pronounced [ˈpɒnɒsi ˈpaːzmaːɲ ˈpeːtɛr; Latin: Petrus Pazmanus; German: Peter Pazman; Slovak: Peter Pázmaň; 4 October 1570 – 19 March 1637), was a Hungarian Jesuit who was a noted philosopher, theologian, cardinal, pulpit orator and statesman.