The Hungarians, when entering their present homes, were heathens, and professed what is called Shamanism, the faith common to all the branches of the vast Uralo-Altaic race, and which has survived to this day amongst the populations of Southern Siberia and Western Mongolia. The doctrines and principles of Shamanism being generally but little known, it is proper to sketch here its outlines, in order to make clear the character of the Hungarian religious rites and customs.

The believers in Shamanism adored one Supreme Being called Isten, a word borrowed from the Persians, who attach to it to this day the meaning of God. Besides the supreme being, they adored sundry spirits or protecting deities, such as the gods of the mountains, woods, springs, rivers, fire, thunder, etc. These divinities were adored either by prayers or through sacrifices offered to them in the recesses of woods, or near springs. What these prayers of the Hungarians were we do not know; we can form, however, some idea of their character on reading the prayers of the present Shaman worshippers, a specimen of which is here subjoined:

The sacrifices consisted in the offering up of cattle and particularly, on solemn occasions, of white horses. Their priests, called TÁltos, occupied a pre-eminent place, not only in the political but also in the social life of the Magyars. They were a kind of augurs and soothsayers, whose prophecies were based either upon certain natural phenomena, or upon the inspection of certain portions of slaughtered animals, such as the intestines, the heart, and shoulder-blade, which latter was put into the fire, good and bad auspices being prognosticated from the different positions of the cracks produced.

Religious faith being always open to outside or foreign influence, it was but natural that the Hungarians, in that long march from the interior of Asia into Europe, should have borrowed many novel features from the religious life of the countries through which they passed. Thus, in the earlier faith of the Magyars, we meet with many distinctive traits of the Parsee religion, of that of the Khazars, and of the religions of many Ugrian races, for, like other families of the Uralo-Altaic race, the Magyars were conspicuous for their spirit of toleration towards other believers.

The numerous Christian prisoners they had brought with them from various parts of Europe were not only left in the undisturbed practice of their creeds, but were even permitted to influence to a very considerable degree the faith of their conquerors and masters. Under these circumstances it was by no means a hazardous undertaking, on the part of Duke Geyza, to give permission to missionaries and priests to come into the country and preach the gospel. A Suabian monk named Wolfgang was the first who tried to spread Christianity in Hungary in 917. A greater success was achieved by Pilgrin, the bishop of Passau, who, taking the matter of conversion into his hands, was able to report to the Pope in 974 that nearly five thousand Hungarians had been baptized, and that “under the benign influence of the miraculous grace of God those heathens even who have remained in their erring ways forbid no one the baptism, nor do they interfere with the priests, allowing them to go where they please. Christians and heathens dwell together in such harmony that here the prophecy of Isaiah seems to be fulfilled: ‘The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.’”

Considering the difficulty of turning inveterate Asiatics to western views of life, and, particularly to the totally different doctrines of the Christian religion, we may easily realize that the total conversion of the Magyars was a work attended with many struggles and difficulties. After Pilgrin we find Bruno engaged in the pious undertaking; but by far the most successful of all of the missionaries was St. Adalbert, the bishop of Prague, who came to the country in 993, and, remaining there for a considerable period of time, had the good fortune to baptize several members of the reigning family, amongst whom was the son of Duke Geyza, called Vayik, to whom was given the Christian name of Stephen. This conversion being regarded as one of the most momentous events in the history of the Hungarians, it will be worth while explaining the accompanying illustration, representing this act. In the baptistry, we perceive, as the principal personage, Stephen, in his baptismal robes. Next to him is seen St. Adalbert, robed and adorned in keeping with his episcopal dignity and the apostolic office of conversion. To the left in the foreground, as witnesses to the baptism, are standing the Emperor of Germany, Otto III., who was brought there by his friendship for Geyza and his interest in the baptism of Stephen, and Count Teodato, of San Severino, a knight who had emigrated from Apulia, and to whom Geyza had entrusted the education of his son. Behind the latter stands Duke Henry of Bavaria, who, attending the emperor, is present as a guest. Farther in the background we perceive Duke Geyza and his consort, sunk in pious revery. We see Stephen after the act of confessing his faith and knowledge of Christianity. Already he had turned his face toward the west, had renounced Satan and devoted himself to the eternal war of the children of God, and then, turning to the east, had vowed, with exalted enthusiasm, obedience and devotion to the Law of God as revealed through Christ. Now we see him, according to the custom of the Church at that time, in the act of descending into the baptismal font in order to receive from the hands of the holy bishop the sign of the Cross, the sacrament of spiritual regeneration.

Pious emotion is reflected in the countenances of the attendant Magyars, although there may be discernible here and there the expression of a hidden spirit of antagonism. And the supposition of such an expression can, in no way, be called a groundless one. The worship of God on the banks of rivers, in woods and groves, the offering of sacrifices, and sundry superstitions connected with the soothsaying of the Shaman priests, certainly impressed more forcibly the minds of the free and independent dwellers of the steppes than the mass pronounced in Latin, and the rites of the Catholic Church, introduced by the monks and priests of the West. Conversion to Christianity had to be unconditionally followed up not only by the relinquishment of the old national religion, but also by the renunciation of the ancient habits and manners, to which the Hungarians clung in spite of the generations that had passed since their coming to the banks of the Danube and Theiss. The reluctance, shown here and there, must be also ascribed to the overbearing attitude assumed by the foreign missionaries towards the ruling race of the Magyars, upon whom these Bavarians, Suabians, Czechs, Italians, etc., looked down as contemptible barbarians, a title they by no means deserved, for it was only the difference in culture and not the want of culture which separated the two elements. Suffice it to say that traces of this discontent became visible very early, and that the slumbering spark broke out in open rebellion in 997, in the very year when Stephen ascended the throne, made vacant through the death of his father, Geyza. History records three different risings, which took place with the intention of doing away with the newly introduced Christian religion, together with all the changed modes of life borrowed from western civilization. In the first instance the movement was headed by KopÁn, a nobleman in the county of SÜmeg. His object was to drive out the foreign Christian missionaries and priests, to dethrone Stephen, and to re-establish the old pagan faith. A vast multitude of discontented Hungarians gathered under his banners, but Stephen was not at all afraid. Collecting his army and the foreign Christian knights about him, he left his regal seat Gran (Esztergom), and marched on straight against the rebels. The engagement took place in the vicinity of VeszprÉm. It was a hard contested struggle, and only after a bitter fight and the death of KopÁn himself, did his adherents lay down their arms. The happy issue of the battle decided the victory of Christianity in Hungary, and all that was still needed, was to strengthen the new faith. The effects of this victory were, nevertheless, of short duration, for in the year 1002, another anti-Christian movement broke out in Transylvania, whose ruler, Duke Gyula, uniting with the partly pagan, partly Mohammedan Petchenegs, made an inroad into Hungary, carrying devastation and bloodshed everywhere. Stephen now had to march against this dangerous enemy, and not only vanquished the Hungarian duke Gyula, but continued his march into the country of the Petchenegs, defeated their prince, Kaan, and looting his camp got possession of all the rich treasures these Petchenegs had carried away from the Greek empire.

The third and decidedly the most dangerous rising took place in 1046, when a certain Vatha, a zealous adherent of the former pagan religion, and an offspring of Duke Gyula, availing himself of the disturbances arising from the contest for the succession to the throne, incited the people against the Christian religion and its institutions. They urged Andrew, the pretender to the throne of the country, “to abolish the Christian religion and its institutions; to re-establish the ancient religion and the laws brought from Asia, and demanded that they should be permitted to pull down the churches, and to drive out the priests and the foreign immigrants.” Unaware of the number and strength of the rebels the prince did not venture to refuse their request. This the rebels took for a tacit compliance, and, emboldened by it, they fell, with wild rage, upon the Christians. The Germans and Italians that were found in the country, especially the bishops and priests, were persecuted with most inhuman cruelty. The churches and other places devoted to Christian piety were destroyed, the ancient pagan religion was restored, and everywhere the people resumed the former mode of life according to their ancient customs and heathen faith, offering up sacrifices, as before, in woods and groves and near springs. During these disorders St. Gerhard, the former tutor of St. Emeric, and at that time bishop of CsanÁd, lost his life. He was on his way to Pesth, to meet Andrew, when he fell into the hands of the enraged populace, was killed by them on the mountain opposite Pesth, called GellÉrthegy (Mount Gerhard) to this day, and his body was thrown into the Danube. Utterly dangerous as the symptoms of these risings were, we see, however, how deeply even at that time Christianity had taken root in Hungary. It very soon became apparent that the revolution was not only of a religious but of a political and social character. King Andrew issued rigorous laws, menacing every one who did not return to the Christian religion and renounce the practice of heathenish customs, with loss of life and property. The destroyed churches were to be rebuilt, and the order of things introduced by Stephen be respected again. These laws and the punishments inflicted upon some of the stubborn adherents of paganism did not fail to produce their effect, and, in a short time, the rebellion was crushed and order and quiet gradually restored throughout the country.

And, strange to say, just as the Mohammedan Turks of our day ascribe the decline and downfall of their power to the many innovations introduced into their religious and social life, and discover the main source of their ruin in the assimilation to the West, precisely so spoke and argued the Hungarians of that day. They laid particular stress upon the fact that the nation, whilst adhering to the religion and customs of its ancestors, had been independent, strong, and mighty, and had even made the whole of Europe tremble; but that now, since it had adopted the religion and customs of the West, the nation was weakened by internal dissensions, strangers had become her masters, foreign armies had penetrated into the very heart of the country—nay, Hungary had lost her independence and had become the vassal of a foreign power. Such representations could not fail to produce their effect. It was easy to convince the uncultivated Hungarians, who were not yet confirmed in the Christian religion and but ill brooked its severe discipline, that all those troubles and misfortunes which had visited the country were the consequences of the introduction of Christianity, and that to achieve a splendid future for the nation, in harmony with its glorious past, this must be done upon the ruins of Christianity and of the institutions introduced by Stephen.

This great change, however repugnant it may have seemed to the Hungarians, was, nevertheless, unavoidable. As previously stated, the foreign elements which flooded the country, owing to the very large number of captives the Hungarians brought with them from every part of Europe, had wrought that change in the manners and habits of life in spite of all the reluctance of the former Asiatic nomads. These captives greatly outnumbering their masters, were mostly used for agricultural purposes, but their close contact with the ruling class unavoidably produced a mitigation of the rude military habits of the latter. The Hungarians eagerly listened to the Christian chants and prayers of their subjects. They imitated them in their food and dress, and, although nearly two centuries had to pass before the former wanderers on the Central-Asian steppes could get accustomed to permanent habitations, and, despite the aversion the proud warrior felt to the plow, the ice, nevertheless, began to break. The Asiatic mode of thinking had to be given up, and with the tenets of Christian tradition habits of Christian life were gradually introduced.

This process of transformation was greatly quickened by the personal intercourse and family connections of Duke Geyza and his chieftains with the court and nobility of the neighboring countries. Besides the involuntary immigration caused by the forays, we meet with a remarkable influx of foreign noblemen who, on the invitation of Duke Geyza, settled in the country, towards the end of the tenth century. The brothers Hunt and PÁzmÁn came from Suabia, Count BuzÁd from Meissen, Count Hermann from Nuremberg; the Czech knights Radovan, BogÁt, and LodÁn came with large retinues; many others immigrated from Italy and Greece, so that the high nobility of Hungary, already at the beginning of the conversion of the Magyars, had a large infusion of foreign blood. It may be added that the entire clergy of that day was composed of Czechs, Germans, and Italians. The ground was, therefore, duly prepared, and it wanted only the iron hand of a resolute and wise ruler to achieve the work of conversion, and to accomplish the great task of transforming a formerly warlike and nomadic nation into a Christian and peaceful community. This ruler was King Stephen I.