A Militant and Expectant Faith

This chapter examines the relationship between Transylvania's princes and Reformed clergy as well as the role of the church in shaping Transylvania's relations with the rest of Protestant Europe. It explores how far a network of international Calvinist connections across Europe informed the development of diplomatic policy at the Transylvanian court during the early seventeenth century. It also considers the degree to which Transylvanian military action against the Habsburgs before 1645, and the catastrophic decision to join the Second Northern War in 1657, were in fact motivated by a desire within the principality to further the international Protestant cause, even though there were few remaining advocates of this cause in European politics and diplomacy by the 1650s. In addition, this chapter outlines ideas within the Hungarian Reformed church about divine judgement and an imminent end of the world. Important parallels are drawn between the fate of Hungary and Israel, which informed notions about a special and predestined role for Hungary and the Transylvanian principality in the apocalypse to come.