The Sovereignty ERC project aims to discover continuities and discontinuities of the state-church relationship with a particular reference to the post-imperial transition(s) after 1918. Our colleagues, Željko Oset and Miklós Tömöry introduced a case study related to this topic in a presentation at the conference “Eparchy of Križevci–History, Culture, Heritage” [Križevačka eparhija–Povijest, kultura, nasljeđe] organised in Križevci, Croatia on November 23, 2024. Their paper “Between Church Autonomy and Dynastical Loyalty” [Između crkvene autonomije i dinastičke lojalnosti] was presented in an online format. Oset and Tömöry analysed the oaths of allegiance of three bishops of the Eparchy; Juraj Smičiklas, who took the oath according to the provisions of the Austrian concordat in 1857, the case of Julije Drohobeczky (1891), that reflects the church policies of the Austro-Hungarian dualism, whereas the oath of Dionisije Njaradi to the new, Yugoslav dynasty and state (1920) was a subject of lengthy negotiations.
