page_title: History of Christianity in Hungary
section_title: King St Stephen
hierarchical_section_title: History of Christianity in Hungary / Middle Ages / King St Stephen
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: A pannonhalmi apátság alapitó oklevele.
context_page_description: The history of Christianity in Hungary started in the Roman province of Pannonia, centuries before the arrival of the Magyars, or Hungarians.
context_section_description: Géza died in 997, leaving Hungary to his son, Stephen who was a devout Christian. Stephen had married Gisela of Bavaria, a relative of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto III. Stephen's kinsman, Koppány, challenged his right to rule, but Stephen's heavy cavalry, mainly Bavarian and Swabian knights, defeated Koppány. To demonstrate his right to rule by the grace of God, Stephen requested a royal crown from Emperor Otto III or Pope Sylvester II. His request was granted and he was crowned the first king of Hungary on 25 December 1000 or 1 January 1001.
  Stephen started the systematic installation of Christianity. He established at least two bishoprics before his coronation and founded no less than six further dioceses between 1001 and 1031. Modern historians agree that the see of Veszprém was the first Catholic bishopric in Hungary. Esztergom was founded as an archbishopric in 1001, establishing the independence of the Hungarian Catholic Church of the prelates of the Holy Roman Empire. Whether Kalocsa was established as a second archbishopric without suffragan bishops, or as a bishopric is uncertain. Stephen founded the Benedictine monasteries at Pécsvárad, Zalavár, Bakonybél and Somlóvásárhely. He gave magnanimous grants to the bishoprics and the abbies and ordered the collection of the tithe, a church tax, for the clergy. He opened Hungary for pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land.
  Christianity could not spread without the application of state violence. Bruno of Querfurt witnessed how Christian soldiers blinded many of the Black Hungarians—an ethnic group in southern Hungary—to enforce their baptism. Stephen outlawed pagan practices and his laws prescribed the adoption of a Christian way of life. His first laws ordered the observation of feast days and fasts and the punishment of those who disturbed the mass by murmuring. The pagans were regularly baptized before their formal education of the Christian doctrines began. Written sources recorded the activities of Slavic, German and Italian missionaries. Bruno of Querfurt met with Adalbert of Prague's tutor, Radla, and one of Adalbert's disciples, Astrik, in Hungary. Bruno's own mission among the Black Hungarians was unsuccessful. A Venetian monk, Gerard, who was consecrated the first bishop of Csanád in 1030, proselytized in his diocese. The longer version of his Life describe him preaching among the pagan Hungarians who were brought to him by royal officials, with seven monks acting as his interpreters.
  The first priests were foreigners. Bonipert, the first bishop of Pécs, came from France or Lombardy; one of his priests, Hilduin, was a Frenchman; the hermits Zoerard and Benedict were born in Poland or Istria. Hungarian liturgy followed southern German, Lotharingian and northern Italian patterns. The first native cleric known by name, Maurus, was consecrated as bishop of Pécs in 1036. Stephen's first laws mention priests acting together with the ispáns (or heads) of the counties, implying that the first parishes were established in county seats. His second law book prescribed that every ten villages were to build a church, but a fully developed parish system cannot be documented for centuries. The earliest churches, mainly made of wood or wattle-and-daub, were built in or near fortresses. Stone churches mainly followed Italian patterns (as it is demonstrated by the Acanthus spinosa carved on the chapiters of the columns in the Romanesque Veszprém Cathedral).
  Latin literacy started in Hungary during Stephen's reign. Bishop Fulbert of Chartres sent a copy of Priscian's Institutes of Grammar—a popular handbook of Latin—to Bonipert of Pécs around 1020. An unidentified foreign cleric wrote a king's mirror, known as Admonitions, for Stephen's son and heir, Emeric, in the 1020s. Gerard of Csanád completed his Deliberatio in Hungary.
  Orthodox communities existed in Stephen's kingdom. He (or his father) established a monastery for Byzantine nuns in Veszprémvölgy. One of his opponents, Ajtony, who ruled the Banat, converted to Orthodoxy and established a monastery for Greek monks at his seat.
caption: The foundation charter of Pannonhalma Abbey, signed by King St Stephen.
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