Who Can Sit Where? Micro-Historical Lessons From Church Seating Disputes and Other Cases Based on a Record of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Feled – Fórum Társadalomtudományi Szemle

Who Can Sit Where? Micro-Historical Lessons From Church Seating Disputes and Other Cases Based on a Record of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Feled

The centuries-old documents in the possession of the Reformed Christian congregations in southern Slovakia, within them in the settlements of the Gemer region, are still an untapped resource for historians and ethnographers. Most parishes in this region keep such documents, such as registers, minutes of presbyteries and assemblies, treasurer’s books, records of the history of the congregation, etc. In this study we are looking at one of the documents (a specific record of a presbytery and assembly) of the Reformed Christian congregation of our place of residence, Feled, which covers a relatively narrow period of time, not quite 13 years. However, both in the larger history and in the life of the local community, these were some of the most eventful years of the 20th century, as the minutes begin on 11 October 1914 and end on 30 January 1927.