During the years of the years of Communism after World War II, multiple priests and religious have been martyred in Hungary and neighboring countries. In this article, I present some of them. I of course submit to the decision of the Church whether or not these people are actually martyrs.
A couple of cities in the following article are today in Romania. In those cases, I put the Hungarian name in parentheses.
Győző Macalik (also Maczalik), secret auxiliary bishop of Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár) (1890-1953)
He was born on March 1, 1890 in Nagyszeben (today Sibiu in Romania). He studied at the Gregoriana Papal University in Rome, and was ordained a priest in Innsbruck, Austria in 1916. He got his doctorate in theology in 1917.
Áron Márton, the Archbishop of Alba Iulia, was a major target of the Communists, so he nominated different people to manage the archdiocese for him in case he was not able to do so. Indeed, he was imprisoned and kept in house arrest for many years. One of the people that administered the diocese temporarily was Macalik.
On June 30, 1950, Macalik was secretly consecrated a bishop in Bucharest by Archbishop Cisar at the request of the pope. He was supposed to serve as an auxiliary bishop of Alba Iulia and administer the diocese when Áron was not able to. However, this consecration became known to the government and he was arrested in August. He was kept for years without trial in prison, where his health declined and he died in August 1953.
József Freesz, priest (1903-1951)
He was born on April 2, 1903 in Budapest. In 1931, he was ordained a priest and continued his studies in Spain.
In 1942, Freesz became the national director of the Catholic organization “Egyházközségi Munkásszakosztály” (EMSZO, Worker’s Special Parish Group). According to the Hungarian Catholic Lexicon, the EMSZO was “a group within parishes to support the workers, educate them in religious and patriotic matters, involve them in parish life and defend their economic and social interests.” They also organized cultural and recreational activities for workers.
The anti-Nazi activities of the EMSZO made Freesz a target during the Second World War. In 1944, the Gestapo tried to arrest him at his place of residence, but as he was elsewhere, they failed.
After the war, the new Communist leadership found it difficult to ban the EMSZO, since it worked actively against the Nazis, so they were able to continue for some time under considerable difficulties.
From 1948 onward, he was repeatedly summoned to appear at the secret police headquarters in Budapest, where they interrogated and tortured him, demanding to give up his evangelizing work among the workers. He died on November 24, 1951 in a hospital in Budapest, officially due to renal failure, in reality because he was beaten to death by the secret police.
Sixtus Debreczeni OCist, Cistercian priest (1917-1954)
He was born as Imre Debreczeni in Székesfehérvár on October 10, 1917, together with is twin brother. He was a student in a Cistercian high school and entered the boy scouts. In 1935, he entered the Cistercian order. In 1942, he made his vows, taking the name Sixtus and was consecrated a priest as well. His twin brother was also consecrated a priest in the same ceremony.
After the war, he became the parish priest at a Cistercian church in Eger. He organized a choir and gave lectures on spirituality and church history. The parish began to flourish under his leadership.
Finally, in 1951, the government pressured him to resign from his post as parish priest, banned him from continuing his priestly ministry and to leave Eger. He found a job as a gardener, and began to secretly organize religious education for young people.
In 1953, there have been two instances of trucks trying to run him over, but he escaped. On February 21, 1954, he was on his way home from visiting an elderly man and his grandchild when he was hit by a car of the secret police car on the sidewalk. He died on the spot. The car also hit and killed a Presbyterian pastor, who just happened to walk by.
The murder is to this day not entirely resolved. In 2014, a commemorative plaque was installed at the location of the accident.
Gabriella Hajdú, Ursuline nun (1915-1963)
She was born as Erzsébet Hajdú on January 8, 1915. When she became eighteen, she applied for membership in the Ursuline order. In 1934, she took the religious name Gabriella. After spending a few years in France, she returned to Cluj (Kolozsvár a magyar neve, Romania) for her university studies. She made her eternal vows in 1939.
After the war she worked as a teacher in Oradea (Nagyvárad). In 1950, after the schools were nationalized, she went to live with her parents in Târgu Mureș (Marosvásárhely), where she worked as a sacristan and secretly catechized children.
She was arrested in 1961 for borrowing illegal religious books and was imprisoned in Oradea (Nagyvárad). Her health deteriorated and she died in prison in April 1963.
Her cause for beatification was launched in 2003.
Sándor Bokor, priest (1915-1972?)
He was born in Brașov (Brassó) on July 15, 1915. He entered seminary after high school and was ordained a priest in 1938. In 1947, he became the parish priest of Băiuț (Erzsébetbánya) in Maramureș county, Romania. The circumstances of his death are not entirely clear. In 1972, he was called in to a secret police station and never returned. Four months later, a corpse was fished out from the Danube in Soviet-Ukraine, who was identified as Bokor.
Pál Mikla, priest (1883-1945)
He was born in 1883 to a Slovak father and a Hungarian mother. In 1925, he became the parish priest of Ecser. In April 1945, a local gang of Communists and Communist sympathizers organized a killing spree in the nearby village of Gyömrő. Local families warned him to flee Ecser, but he insisted on staying with his faithful. On April 16, 1945, Mikla was shot five times and his body was left in a ditch.
Endre Farkas, lawyer (1886-1958)
Cardinal Mindszenty’s mother hired Farkas, a faithful Catholic lawyer, to defend him. The court didn’t allow it and Farkas was accused of conspiracy in the Grősz show trial. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and died there.
Resources
One of my main resources for this article was the book “Halálra szántak – mégis élünk!” (“They wanted us to die – but we are still alive!”) by the Hungarian Catholic priest Ferenc Tomka (Szent István Társulat, 2005).
Maczalik
Hungarian Catholic Lexicon entry
Paper about the Archdiocese of Alba Iulia and Áron Márton’s management
Freesz
Hungarian Catholic Lexicon entry
Article in the Catholic weekly Új Ember (New Man)
Debreczeni
Hungarian Catholic Lexicon entry
Article on the Catholic news portal Magyar Kurír on the 70th anniversary of his death
Hajdú
Article on the Catholic news portal Magyar Kurír on the 50th anniversary of her death
Article in the Catholic weekly Új Ember (New Man)
Article on the website of the Archdiocese
Bokor
Article on the Romanian Hungarian-language Catholic portal romkat.ro
Mikla
Article on the website of the village Ecser
Farkas
Hungarian Catholic Lexicon entry
A view of Eger, Hungary. Image by István on Flickr under the CC-BY-NC-ND license, here.