Prehistory: Cistercians in Hungary
An aerial view of the Abbey of Zirc.
Cistercians first came to Hungary during the lifetime of St. Bernard. The first Hungarian Abbey, Cikádor, was founded in 1142. Over the next several decades a dozen more foundations followed, among them the monastery of Zirc, founded by monks from Clairvaux in 1182 and sponsored by King Béla III. Cistercian life continued in Hungary until the Ottoman invasion of 1526, in which all Hungarian monasteries perished.
More than a century later, in 1699, Cistercian life was reborn in Hungary when the Silesian monastery of Heinrichau (then in Prussia, now "Henrikow" in Poland) obtained the charter for the Abbey of Zirc and sent missionary monks to rebuild it. Within another century the Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II, an "enlightened monarch," began suppressing the monasteries within his realm on the grounds of their seeming uselessness; Zirc, however, survived, largely because of the influence of its mother-abbey in Prussia.
Refugee Monks in Rome (Cistercian General House, 1957). From left: Fr. Denis Farkasfalvy, Br. Sempronianus Pollner, Fr. Matthew Kovacs, Fr. Roch Kereszty, Fr. Pascal Kis-Horvath, Fr. Aurel Mensaros, Fr. Julius Leloczky, and Br. Romuald Verbay.
In 1776, the Cistercians of Zirc decided to assume responsibility for several secondary schools that had been deprived of religious leadership. This added apostolic project gave significant vitality and growth during the next 150 years. By the eve of the Second World War, more than 200 monks belonged to the Archabbey of Zirc, which administered five urban secondary schools, fifteen parishes, numerous rectories and priories, and a vibrant formation program in the Abbey itself, where more than eighty monks lived.
Zirc lost its lands to the state in 1945, but was promised state support for its educational institutions. All its schools, however, were confiscated in 1948. Finally, in 1950 the monastery and all its dependent houses were suppressed and the monks were dispersed. During to the persecution of the Church orchestrated by the Communist regime, about 40 monks, including Abbot Wendelin Endrédy, were imprisoned. Others – altogether about 30 – fled the country.
