Kálmán Rácz: The Role of Catholicism in the Policy of Géza Szüllő

In my thesis, I mainly look for answers to two questions. The first one asks what clear links can be traced between the political strategy and the activities for defence of church performed by Géza Szüllő. The other question looks for the characterization of the attitude of the individual streams of the Catholicism of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia towards the political concept and ecclesiastical policy of Szüllő. He had not in view the pure defence of church before 1918 either, he did not follow a denominational stream but he adapted his ecclesiastical ideas to his credo in national policy.
He regarded church work exclusively as a politician, and this is ever so much true for his activities after Trianon. His direct purpose was the delay of the administrative settlement of the Church in Slovakia: he did not want the final conditions adjusted to the new borders, because in the result of these, the establishment of St. Stephen’s Church would have been dissolved, helping to complete the full consolidation of Czechoslovakia, and, on the other hand, all changes would have happened at the expense of the Hungarian believers, as they would have been scattered in the direction of North–South, in bishoprics dominated and led by the Slovaks.
Admittedly, he had endeavoured to disturb the development of good relationship between the Czechoslovak state and the Vatican with his interventions. He built excellent relationships with the curial cardinals of the Vatican, the members or leaders of the individual congregations. He visited Rome several times a year, and striking while the iron is hot, he constantly “bombed” the Vatican with memoranda. He performed this task not in a suffering, tragic pose, but possessing genteel manners, in an easy style of a multi-faceted, educated person experienced in protocol and diplomacy.