The 17th and 18th centuries have been regarded as one of the most exciting periods in the history of Hungary and Transylvania. The wars of liberation to terminate the Ottoman occupation, the integration of the Transylvanian Principality into the Habsburg Empire after 150-years' relative independence, the colonisation of the uncultivated lands during the Ottoman rule, the re-organisation of daily life and Prince Francis (Ferenc) Rákóczi's independence war (1703–1711) indicated serious challenges for the Habsburg Court in Vienna. This period (1686−1711) felled serious duties to the Hungarian Catholic Church, too. Prior to these duties, the process of Counter-Reformation in Hungary's eastern and northern regions was getting increasingly under way: Orthodox Ruthenians and Romanians in Transylvania united with the Roman Catholic Church. The bishops, who were highly supported by the missionaries delegated from Rome in order to re-organise the Hungarian Catholic Church's religious life, re-appeared at the seats of the abandoned dioceses after the 150-years' Ottoman occupation and nearly 110-years' pressure from the strong Protestantism supported by the Princes of Transylvania. The Armenians' church-union in Transylvania must be, in fact, analysed in this church-historical context. The history of Armenians in Transylvania, escaping from Moldavia and Podolia between 1668 and 1672, should be regarded practically as an undiscovered area from both the Hungarian and international church-historical point of view. The church-union of the Armenians in Transylvania is primarily associated with Bishop Oxendio Virziresco's (1654–1715), an Armenian Uniate cleric educated at Collegium Urbanum in Rome, missionary efforts. In this work, I have tried to look for evident responses to these afore-mentioned problems, resting on the partly discovered and undiscovered sources as well as analysing critically a few of secondary literature.

The 17th and 18th centuries have been regarded as one of the most exciting periods in the history of Hungary and Transylvania. The wars of liberation to terminate the Ottoman occupation, the integration of the Transylvanian Principality into the Habsburg Empire after 150-years’ relative independence, the colonisation of the uncultivated lands during the Ottoman rule, the re-organisation of daily life and Prince Francis (Ferenc) Rákóczi’s independence war (1703–1711) indicated serious challenges for the Habsburg Court in Vienna. This period (1686−1711) felled serious duties to the Hungarian Catholic Church, too. Prior to these duties, the process of Counter-Reformation in Hungary’s eastern and northern regions was getting increasingly under way: Orthodox Ruthenians and Romanians in Transylvania united with the Roman Catholic Church. The bishops, who were highly supported by the missionaries delegated from Rome in order to re-organise the Hungarian Catholic Church’s religious life, re-appeared at the seats of the abandoned dioceses after the 150-years’ Ottoman occupation and nearly 110-years’ pressure from the strong Protestantism supported by the Princes of Transylvania. The Armenians’ church-union in Transylvania must be, in fact, analysed in this church-historical context. The history of Armenians in Transylvania, escaping from Moldavia and Podolia between 1668 and 1672, should be regarded practically as an undiscovered area from both the Hungarian and international church-historical point of view. The church-union of the Armenians in Transylvania is primarily associated with Bishop Oxendio Virziresco’s (1654–1715), an Armenian Uniate cleric educated at Collegium Urbanum in Rome, missionary efforts. In this work, I have tried to look for evident responses to these afore-mentioned problems, resting on the partly discovered and undiscovered sources as well as analysing critically a few of secondary literature.

For more than four and a half centuries, the Jesuits in Hungary were forced to repeatedly recommence their activities due to wars, uprisings, and political conflicts. The Society of Jesus first settled in Hungary in 1561 during the period of Ottoman conquest. Despite their difficulties in a war-torn country, a network of Jesuit colleges was established as part of the Austrian Province, and the eighteenth century was a period of cultural and scientific prosperity for the Jesuits in Hungary. The Suppression of 1773, however, abruptly suspended this tradition for eighty years. After they resettled in Hungary in 1853, the Jesuits searched for new ways of apostolic work. The independent Hungarian Jesuit Province was established in 1909. The totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century posed fresh challenges. During the Communist period, the Hungarian Jesuit Province was forced to split up into two sections. The Jesuits in exile and those who remained in Hungary were reunited in 1990.

The forty-one years between the Society of Jesus’s papal suppression in 1773 and its eventual restoration in 1814 remain controversial, with new research and interpretations continually appearing. Shore’s narrative approaches these years, and the period preceding the suppression, from a new perspective that covers individuals not usually discussed in works dealing with this topic. As well as examining the contributions of former Jesuits to fields as diverse as ethnology—a term and concept pioneered by an ex-Jesuit—and library science, where Jesuits and ex-Jesuits laid the groundwork for the great advances of the nineteenth century, the essay also explores the period the exiled Society spent in the Russian Empire. It concludes with a discussion of the Society’s restoration in the broader context of world history.