Kálmán Rácz: Esztergom Office of Archbishop contra Czechoslovak State – Religious Estate Lawsuits at the Hague Court (II. part)
In the 1930’s due to European power relation changes Czechoslovakia’s foreign policy situation was worsening. Hence, Prague’s diplomacy strove even more strongly to achieve such foreign policy results that would strengthen the country’s security. In connection with the issue of border arrangement of religious leadership, that is the issue of the execution of modus vivendi Prague’s diplomacy commenced a more offensive policy, of which sign was a not submitted to Vatican in February 1934, in which promises and threats were also present. They introduced that the government was able to liberate the religious estates from the blockade, but they set a condition: the Hungarian owners should first draw back their lawsuits and let the agreement made between the Vatican and the Czechoslovak government to satisfied their claims. To even stress the issue they stated that in case of refusal the primate estates will be expropriated.
The government was not indifferent to the fact that discussion of lawsuits began for the sake of protecting rights of Hungarian legal entities based on the piece agreement is threatened by another factor. It was even more obscure for Budapest, because the lawsuit according to their opinion served the interest of the church against an anti-church factor. Budapest declared that the government would never agree with the definitive repeal of lawsuits, although agreed with the interception with the hope that during the discussion with the Czechs, Vatican will represent the Hungarian viewpoint consistently.
In May 1934 not the repeal, but the interception of lawsuit demanded by Czechoslovakia and originally requested by Rome happened, that practically did not mean too substantial difference.
The history of the lawsuit was accomplished with this, since there was no succession, although the issue of estates remained the source of disagreements. After the interception of lawsuits the only field of solving the issue became the discussions of Czechoslovakia-Vatican. The government in 1935 delivered the bishop and archbishop estates to administrators, then Prague agreed that the compensations decided by the Vatican will be transferred to the relevant Hungarian subjects and the claim to definitely intercept the Hague lawsuit was abandoned.
Thanks to all these the XI. Pius with the bull dated on 2nd Sept. 1937 that begin with „Ad ecclesiastici regimis incrementum” arranged the religious borders to the state borders, executing the first paragraph of modus vivendi. Hence, touching the territory of the diocese of Rozsnyó, Kassa, Szatmár, and obviously Esztergom dismembration was provided, but still the final creation of the Up-land religious leadership was not provided, since the Nagyszombat apostle administration remained. Establishing a new bishopry or archbishopry on its territory was only planned by the bull. According to Rome’s condition, first the issue of the compensation of Hungarian religious persons and institutions and the division of the properties was to be solved. To that time according to Vatican the historical religious borders would be set inside Slovakia.