Hierotheus of Hungary

Holy Hierarch Hierotheus of Hungary († 955) was sent from Constantinople in the tenth century to preach Christianity among the Hungarians. He successfully converted the local population, especially in the region of the Tisza, where archaeologists find Byzantine crosses and remains of churches. Although Hungary later passed to Catholicism, Orthodoxy was preserved in the eastern regions for about two centuries more.

He was an early bishop who struggled in Hungary, sent from Constantinople after the conversion to Christianity of a prince of Eastern Hungary following a visit to Tsargrad in 948. Ordained pastor of Turkia, that is, of Hungary, he preached among the local population. Thanks to his labours Orthodoxy gained followers there and, even after the mass conversion to Roman Catholicism, determined by the western orientation of the kings, was preserved in the eastern bounds of Hungary for about two centuries more.

The chronicler John Skylitzes reports that Prince Vulosud (Bulcsu), pretending that he had come to love the Christian faith, came to Constantinople. He was baptised, with Emperor Constantine (Porphyrogenitus) as his godfather, was honoured with the title of patrician and, having become owner of great wealth, returned home. After some time Gylas (Gyula), who was also a prince of the Turks (that is, the Hungarians), came to the capital and was baptised; he received the same benefits and honours. On returning he took with him a monk named Hierotheus, famous for his piety, who was ordained bishop of Turkia by Patriarch Theophylact. Arriving there, he brought many of the barbarians to Christianity. Gylas remained in the faith and himself never made raids against the Romans, nor left Christian captives without care. As for Vulosud, he disregarded his covenant with God and often, with his whole tribe, advanced against the Romans. Judging by the place of this report in the Chronicle, Hierotheus's mission began between 948 and 954. Bulcsu, whose holdings were near Lake Balaton, was crushed by the German emperor Otto I and put to death in 955. It is harder to determine who Gyula was (most likely not a personal name but a title) and where his principality lay; the problem is the subject of a politically coloured controversy. Most probably Gyula ruled, and Saint Hierotheus preached, on both sides of the Tisza, between the mouths of the rivers Mures and Koros, that is, in south-⁠eastern Hungary. Here archaeologists have found many coins of Emperor Constantine VII and Byzantine encolpion crosses. The fact that some crosses are of wood may be regarded as evidence of the spread of Christianity among the common people. Remains of several churches were found there too. It is also possible to locate Hierotheus's see of Turkia in Transylvania, in the area of the ancient town of Alba Iulia (today in Romania), but there the see seems to have arisen only at the turn of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

Of Saint Hierotheus's work in Turkia we can judge indirectly from a late Old Russian source, the Tale of the Latins, When They Separated from the Greeks, in which an old Byzantine prototype is reflected: two princes of the Paeonian people rose with all their armies and came as far as Constantinople. They received Holy Baptism and the Gospel of Christ and returned to their land. Until Greek bishops came to instruct them in the Scriptures, their prince, named Stephen (Istvan), passed away in the pious faith of Christ, having done many good deeds pleasing to God. But soon they could not establish the Paeonian people in the faith, because they had no books in their language. It seems that Gyula received the name Stephen at baptism. Paeones are an archaising designation used in Byzantine sources from the twelfth century, chiefly for the Hungarians. Since on many of the encolpia found on the Tisza the Great Martyr Demetrius of Thessalonica is depicted, it may be supposed that the archbishopric of Thessalonica helped in Saint Hierotheus's mission. On the other hand, the Slavic origin of many words in the Christian vocabulary of the Hungarian language may show that at the initial stage of catechising the Byzantines made much use of bilingual helpers from among the baptised Slavs there. Seals of several of Saint Hierotheus's successors have been preserved: Theophylact, Demetrius, John, Anthony.

He is commemorated on 20 August (new style).