Martin Cseles

* Rózsavölgy, October 28, 1641 – † Sárospatak, January 14, 1709 / Jesuit teacher, theologian ; ; He joined the Society of Jesus in 1657. In 1673–1676, he taught philosophy in Nagyszombat, and church law and theology in Graz and Vienna. On behalf of Archbishop Lipót Kollonich of Esztergom, he researched Hungarian-related sources in the Vatican Archives in Rome from 1694 to 1702. In 1695, after about 450 years of “latency”, he found the Riccardus Report, which summarized the events of Brother Julianus’ two journeys along the Volga between 1235 and 1238. However, he did not publish this discovery at the time, he only made notes about the text, so it was only half a century later, in 1748, that the Piarist monk Imre Desericzky reported on it in his book De initiis ac majoribus Ungarorum. But he still did a great job, and the result of his diligent copying was an 11-volume collection of documents, which is currently in the University Library of Budapest. Cseles' own entries can also be read in the manuscript, which reveal that he was interested in the Hungarians who remained in the East and the ancestral homeland of the Hungarians. Returning to Hungary, he became the head of the monastery in Győr, and then settled in Bratislava. During the Rákóczi War of Independence, he was a provincial head, at which time he was captured by the Kurucs and first taken to Érsekújvár, then to Nyitra, and finally to Munkács, where he was held captive for a year. His contemporaries called him the Hungarian Cicero. ; ; His main works: ; Elucidatio historico-chronologica de episcopatu Transilvaniae, 1702.