On 4 May 2026, during the Dies Academicus of the Saint Athanasius Greek Catholic Theological College in Nyíregyháza, a presentation was held of the lexicon volume devoted to the Greek Catholic dioceses and bishops of the nineteenth-century Kingdom of Hungary, published in the Collectanea Studiorum et Textuum series of the Fraknói Research Group in cooperation with the Greek Catholic Heritage Research Group.
Within the scholarly section of the Saint Athanasius Day celebrations, Thomas Németh, professor at the University of Vienna, and András Dobos, rector of the seminary and lecturer at the Saint Athanasius College, presented and assessed the volume before a large audience that included Greek Catholic bishops, faculty members, students, and seminarians. Three of the editors of the work were also present at the book launch: Tamás Véghseő, as well as Péter Tusor and Zsófia Szirtes representing the Fraknói Research Group, together with the editorial assistant Olivér Kőhalmi.
Thomas Németh first outlined the structural conception of the Greek Catholic Bishops’ Lexicon, whose framework consists, diocesan by diocesan, of concise introductory studies followed by chronologically arranged episcopal biographies. This mirrors exactly the structure of the first volume, published in 2025, which contains the material of the ecclesiastical provinces of Esztergom (I), Kalocsa (II), Eger (III), together with Pannonhalma (IV). He highlighted that the present Greek Catholic chapter (V), issued as an independent volume, concludes with extensive indices of places and names, a concordance list facilitating unified use of Chapters I–V—divided into separate Latin and Greek volumes according to ecclesiastical-administrative units—as well as a photographic appendix and map supplement. The individual entries consistently reflect the perspectives of two authors, which contributes to the nuance and richness of the texts; one of the co-authors in every case is Tamás Véghseő. Németh also stressed the scholarly importance of the extensive bibliographies and source lists appended to each episcopal biogram.
In his presentation of the volume, András Dobos expressed his satisfaction that essential biographical and diocesan-historical data—previously scattered, incomplete, and lacking systematic synthesis—have now been published in a form both worthy and highly readable. Covering 31 bishops from seven dioceses (Munkács, Eperjes, Hajdúdorog, Fogaras and Gyulafehérvár, Nagyvárad, Szamosújvár, and Lugos) across 210 pages, the publication represents not only an important scholarly reference work for historians, but also an informative and engaging volume accessible to a wider interested readership. He noted that future readers may even approach the book as continuous reading, something rarely associated with lexicons as a genre.
At the close of the event, Research Group director Péter Tusor briefly outlined the international—primarily Austrian and German—cooperative framework within which the volume had come into being. He explained that the Greek Catholic dioceses of Hungary had been omitted from the 2020 Berlin edition (Duncker & Humblot) because a later decision by the Vienna-based general editor, Professor Rupert Klieber, reassigned them to a projected future volume encompassing all Greek Catholic and Orthodox dioceses and bishops of the Habsburg Monarchy. The Fraknói Research Group, however, considered it essential that the Hungarian episcopate of the “long nineteenth century” should be presented in an integral and historically authentic form; for this reason, the material concerning the Hungarian Greek Catholic dioceses was published independently in its present form. Tusor concluded by expressing his gratitude to his fellow editors and to all contributors to the lexicon volumes for their dedicated and high-quality work.
Like the other publications of the Fraknói Research Group, the volume is freely accessible and available in e-book form:
The Dioceses and Bishops of Hungary (1804–1918). Institutional and Biographical Lexicon V (CST I/9), ed. Zsófia Szirtes – Péter Tusor – Tamás Véghseő – Rupert Klieber, assistant editor: Olivér Kőhalmi, Budapest, 2026. (Magyarország egyházmegyéi és püspökei (1804–1918). Intézménytörténeti és életrajzi lexikon V (CST I/9), szerk. Szirtes Zsófia–Tusor Péter–Véghseő Tamás–Rupert Klieber, mts. Kőhalmi Olivér, Budapest 2026.)
A further report and photo gallery are available on the website of szentatanaz.hu
