Pilgrims in a Foreign Land: A Survey of Hungarian Catholic Shrines in the United States and Their Relation to Other Ethnic Shrines

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
American Catholicism has been and continues to be molded by immigration and ethnicity. Much scholarly attention has been devoted to the religious and social functions that nationality parishes have played in serving Catholic immigrant communities and their descendants, but considerably less attention has been given to the unique regional forms of popular piety practiced in these ethnic parishes. Among these manifestations of popular piety was the rich tradition of pilgrimage to sites commemorating particular saints, apparitions, or miraculous images that were so closely connected to the immigrants' national identities. While many ethnic parishes and other ethnic Catholic associations continued practicing this tradition in their new homeland by sponsoring pilgrimages to existing shrines that had primarily been established by long-assimilated Irish, French, and German Catholic groups, some ethnic Catholic communities developed their own shrines with replicas of these objects of popular devotion from their homelands. Hungarian Catholics were no exception to this natural progression in the development of religious life in exile. This paper will present the history of several Hungarian shrines in America, ranging from narthex shrines to wayside shrines and diocesan shrines, and will examine parallels between them and the shrines established by other ethnic groups in America. With the recent designation of America's oldest Hungarian Roman Catholic church as the Shrine of St. Elizabeth in August 2023, the present moment is a fitting time to begin initial investigations into the legacy of Hungarian pilgrimage traditions in America.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nicholas Boros serves as Upper School Mathematics Teacher at Hawken School in Gates Mills, Ohio. He completed his undergraduate studies in comparative religion, linguistics, and mathematics at Cleveland State University in 2015. His primary area of research focuses on the history of Eastern Orthodoxy in the United States, and he periodically works on projects related to the development of Hungarian Catholicism in America.