Tömösközi Ferenc. Hivatás és identitás – A losonci teológiai

Vocation and Identity – The Theological Seminary from Losonc in Light of Pastoral Autobiographies from 1942–1943 The interwar years witnessed a notable consolidation and flourishing of the Reformed Church in Central Europe, a period marked simultaneously by significant challenges and new opportunities. A thorough investigation of these two decades proves indispensable for a deeper understanding of twentieth-century church history. This article explores the role
of the Losonc Theological Seminary in Czechoslovakia, considering its place within both ecclesiastical and educational history, with particular attention to its representation in autobiographical writings of Reformed pastors composed between 1942 and 1943. These sources are of exceptional value, as they were produced at a moment when the imminence of war was already palpable, yet the direct experience of the front remained remote. The autobiographies therefore function not only as individual testimonies but also as indirect witnesses to the historical development of the Church. Operating between 1925 and 1938, the Losonc Seminary represented the sole institution of higher learning for the Hungarian Reformed minority in Czechoslovakia. Its institutional weight is underscored by its decisive influence upon the vocational formation and subsequent careers of an entire pastoral generation, an impact that endured well beyond its closure and into the post-war political transformations. The present study analyses these autobiographies in order to uncover how pastors recollected the seminary and its professors, and to determine the place and interpretive function that these memories assumed within their broader biographical narratives.
Keywords: Reformed church, Czechoslovakia, theological seminary, pastors, autobiography