György Komáromi Csipkés (1628–1678)

Translator of the Bible

György Csipkés of Komárom’s university studies were financed by the town council of Debrecen, who then invited him to become a professor at the Reformed College. Csipkés de Komárom was a renowned theologian, author of Hebrew, Hungarian and English grammar books as well as of sermons and a developer of new school rules.

From 1657 until his death he served as a preacher in Debrecen, a town stricken by fires, pillaging Turks and epidemics. With his works on the plague and comets he challenged superstitions in the language of the people.

Csipkés de Komárom is, however, most renowned for his Hungarian Bible translations from the original Hebrew and Greek texts, published between 1685 and 1717 in Leiden. The costs of printing his Bible were borne by the cívis town, but the copies sent from the Netherlands were confiscated on the Hungarian border due to the fact that some passages deviated from the Catholic translation. Some of them were burnt and others went to ruin in the bishop of Eger’s cellar. What few were left only got to Debrecen in the late 18th century.