A kegyúri intézmény kialakulása, virágzása és megszűnése, különös tekinettel Kunszentmárton város egyházi életére 1850-től 1950-ig

The title of my dissertation – “The developement, the golden age and the end of patronage, particularly considering the parochial life of Kunszentmárton from 1850 until 1950” – shows that I would like to demonstrate the parochial life of a city of the Great Plain, Kunszentmárton, while analyzing quite a nice part of the universal canon law. About the concept of patronage a thorough explanation is found in encyclopedias or in many volumes of specialized literature, but the most authentic and most important definition is given by the Codex of 1917 itself. Accordingly, patronage is a Church-given privilege which is given to the founders of churches, chapels and benefices, or to the legal successors of these founders. Only Catholics could obtain the right of patronage.The patron of Kunszentmárton not only exercised his rights in connection with Church persons, but he found important renovating the sacred buildings of the area and keeping them in good condition.Perhaps the most important part of my dissertation is the formation and the exercise of the right to elect parish priest. After the redemptio, the superiors of the city obtained from the ruler the free right to elect parish priest as a privilege. It had been an exercise for two centuries that the patron himself had chosen the parish priest according to the rules who was later appointed to lead the parish by the archbishop of Eger.The practise of the patron’s rights became sensible in Kunszentmárton in 1945. The first spectacular moment of this was the radical change of the fondly-prac-tised right of the patron to elect parish priest. At the end of the 1940s the spread of ideas of the communist regime was sig-nificant in the country. This spread, of course, did not leave neither the estates of the church, nor the clerical affairs such as parish priest elections untouched – as we have seen at the election of the parish priest . Gradually, without knowing the exact date, the centuries-old patronage ceased in Kunszentmárton.After that, the parish council of representatives and the parish had to undertake all the tasks, rights and obligations, that had been done by the Church-patronage for nearly two and a half centuries