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PRELUDE The Lure of Challenge At the turn of the seventeenth century, in the rapidly evolving world of the frontiers among Habsburg, Ottoman and Transylvanian territories , Father Paul Ladislaus Baranyi was one of the most active and influential players. Born in 1657 to a noble family in Jászberény in Ottoman occupied Hungary, and educated at the great Jesuit training center in Graz, Baranyi undertook his fourth vow as a Jesuit in Cluj before the Society had been officially reinstated in the independent Grand Principality of Transylvania.1 As an exponent of baroque piety, Baranyi believed in holy images that could appear in candle flames and aggressively promoted devotion to such images.2 He was also an author of popular devotional texts, a school administrator, and the prime mover in the establishment of the Uniate Church in Transylvania.3 But among Jesuits his name also survived because of other exploits, which included long journeys conducted incognito and in laymen’s garb through dangerous regions in the east. One day, returning from 1 Baranyi also studied at Trenčin, at the Jesuit novitiate, which was then also far from the Ottoman frontier. Gyenis, A trencséni jezsuita noviciátus anyak önyve, 38; Stoeger, Scriptores, 21. 2 In Varona [?], Hungary an image of the Virgin holding the infant Jesus in her arms was attested to by Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In the same town a painting of the Virgin owned by Nicolaus Bercsényi, who had served as a general in Francis Rákóczi’s army, and in whose courtyard the miraculous candle image had appeared, was said to weep. Letter of Paulus Baranyi to Gabriel Hevenesei, Pestini, 6 March 1709, Ms. III, Kap. A, Tomus VIII, fol. 352, ELTEK. 3 Horányi, Memoria Hungarorum et Provincialium, i, 115; Stoeger, Scriptores 21, Márton, “A gyulafehérvári vallási unió (1697–1701).” 2 Narratives of Adversity giving the viaticum to a remotely situated Catholic, Baranyi was passing through a forest “with only one servant,” when he was set upon by “heretic [probably Calvinist] noblemen.” In response to their own threatening swords, Baranyi drew his own sword, cut at his assailants, and they ran away.4 The brief but highly suggestive account of these events published in the early twentieth century gives no source, and other contemporaneous accounts of Baranyi’s life make no mention of the incident, so the story may have survived in a less formal or oral tradition of the Austrian Province. On its most literal level, the story of Baranyi’s successful escape from immediate physical periculum contains many surprising details. We may ask, was it customary for this intrepid priest to travel with more than one servant? And did he usually carry a sword? (There are a few reports of Jesuits traveling armed in Ottoman Serbia, but the Constitutions of the Society made no provisions for such things.) How did this Jesuit, who on another occasion managed to “rescue the inhabitants of an entire district,” acquire the skills necessary to perform these feats? Were these skills in any way part of his Jesuit training?5 Do they shed light on Baranyi’s life before entering the Society? Beyond these more obvious questions, what does the preservation of this story say about the ways in which one could be a “good Jesuit” along the eastern edges of what was then regarded as Europe? By joining the Society of Jesus and accepting the possibility of facing danger and even death, how were the behaviors of what might be understood as passive martyrdom vis-à-vis a skilled and successful personal defense understood ? And most importantly, what does the survival and valuing of this story tell us about the culture and values of the Society that gave Baranyi his identity, his mission, and his faith? Within the overarching plotline of “adversity confronted and overcome” common to Jesuit narratives throughout the world we find 4 Velics, Vázlatok a Magyar jezsuiták múltjából, Vol. 3: 1690–1773, p. 9. In 1653 the “cives” of Roman, Moldavia wrote that Jesuits traveled about in carts and on horseback, clad in fox furs, armed and accompanied by famuli. The Jesuits were also accused of writing, “falsas fingendo literas,” to Constantinople , Germany and Poland. Călinescu, “Altre Notizie,” 439. 5 Noble youths attending Jesuit schools in the mid-seventeenth century were taught, along with the classics, how to ride a horse and handle a sword. Péter, K, Beloved Children...

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