page_title: Edict of Torda
section_title: John Sigismund, Dávid and Biandrata
hierarchical_section_title: Edict of Torda / John Sigismund, Dávid and Biandrata
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: János Zsigmond arcképe English: Portrait of Zsigmond János
context_page_description: The Edict of Torda was a decree that authorized local communities to freely elect their preachers in the "eastern Hungarian Kingdom" of John Sigismund Zápolya. The delegates of the Three Nations of Transylvania – the Hungarian nobles, Transylvanian Saxons, and Székelys – adopted it at the request of the monarch's Antitrinitarian court preacher, Ferenc Dávid, in Torda on 28 January 1568. Though it did not acknowledge an individual's right to religious freedom, in sanctioning the existence of a radical Christian religion in a European state, the decree was an unprecedented act of religious tolerance.
  The Catholic and Orthodox Churches had already coexisted in the southern and eastern territories of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary for centuries. However, ideas that the Catholic Church regarded as heresy were not tolerated: the Hungarian Hussites were expelled from the country in the 1430s and the Diet of Hungary passed a decree that ordered the persecution of the Lutherans in 1523. The latter decree was in practice ignored during the civil war that followed the Ottoman victory against the Hungarian army in the Battle of Mohács in 1526.
context_section_description: John Sigismund became the actual ruler after the death of his mother on 15 November 1559. He had grown up as a Catholic, but he showed curiosity about theological issues. He organized new religious debates between representatives of the Lutheran and Calvinist theologies in Mediasch (now Mediaș in Romania) in January 1560 and February 1561. His Lutheran chancellor, Mihály Csáky, persuaded him to order the two parties to summarize their views in writing. The summaries were sent for review to Wittenberg, Leipzig, and two other centers of theological studies in the Holy Roman Empire. The four German academies responded in early 1562, and their opinions were taken into account when the synod of the Lutheran clergy adopted a new creed in the same year. John Sigismund soon converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism.
  A clergyman from Kolozsvár (now Cluj-Napoca in Romania), Ferenc Dávid, had meanwhile become a key figure in the development of Protestant ideas in John Sigismund's realm. Historian István Keul says that Dávid's career displays his extraordinary "denominational flexibility". He was elected the superintendent of the Church of the Hungarian Lutherans in 1557. He made attempts to reconcile the Lutheran and Calvinist clerics, but their views of the Eucharist were incompatible. Dávid's studies of the works of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Michael Servetus contributed to his critical attitude towards dogmas and the development of his conviction of the free choice of religion.
  Erasmus had already in the early 16th century urged the commoners to regularly read the Bible. When publishing a Greek version of the New Testament in 1516, he ignored the eighth verse of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of John. Its text had always been regarded as the principal evidence of the Trinity (or the doctrine of the existence of three persons of God). Servetus read the critical studies of Joseph Kimhi and other Jewish scholars about the Trinity, and concluded that this dogma was the principal doctrine that separated Christianity from Judaism and Islam. He was forced to leave his native Spain for his Antitrinitarian views. He was executed with John Calvin's consent in Geneva in 1553.
  Dávid was elected the superintendent of the newly formed Transylvanian Reformed Church, which adhered to Calvin's theology, in 1564. In the same year, John Sigismund converted from Lutheranism to Calvinism and made Dávid his court preacher. The Diet also acknowledged the existence of a separate Calvinist Church. Two years later the Diet made a Romanian Calvinist pastor the head of the Church of the Romanians. The Diet also ordered the expulsion of the Orthodox clerics who were unwilling to adhere to Calvinism, but the decree was never implemented.
  John Sigismund made the Italian Giorgio Biandrata his court physician in 1563. Inspired by Servetus's views, Biandrata had questioned the deity of Jesus Christ already in the late 1550s, for which Calvin regarded him as a "monster". Under Biandrata's influence, Dávid adopted an Antitrinitarian theology in 1565. Péter Melius Juhász, the Calvinist bishop of Debrecen, sharply criticized him, but the most influential burghers of Kolozsvár remained Dávid's staunch supporters. They prohibited the preaching of doctrines that differed from his views.
  John Sigismund initially supported Melius Juhász, but his Antitrinitarian court physician strongly influenced him. He did not prevent Biandrata and Dávid from holding a synod in early 1567. The synod adopted an Antitrinitarian creed, declaring that God the Father was the single God. Gáspár Heltai, Péter Károlyi, and other Calvinist priests left Kolozsvár, but more and more Hungarian noblemen and burghers were willing to accept Dávid's views. Melius Juhász held a synod at Debrecen that adopted a Trinitarian creed. His supporters demanded that Dávid should be stoned for his heresy.
caption: John Sigismund Zápolya
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