Theologies, professor, bishop of Csanád (today Cenad, Romania).
He was born in Bács, in Bács-Bodrog County on April 6, 1810. He learned Croatian in his native village and German in the neighbouring village of Bukin (where his brother, Pál, was the vicar). He studied Latin for three years in the same village and went to High-School in Kalocsa. After that, he continued his studies at the local Seminar. He studied philosophy in Eger, theology in Kalocsa and Pest in the Central Seminar. In September 21, 1833 he was ordered priest. He continued his studies at the Augustine Seminar in Vienna. The seminar was founded by the Hungarian King Franz I. In 1836 he was assistant minister in Baja, then went to Pest and became a prefect. He went back to the Central Seminar, where he taught clerical history. In the same year he was rewarded with the title of Doctor of Theology and went back to Kalocsa to teach clerical history. After two years, in 1846 he became the secretary of the Archbishop and Titular Canon, and in 1850 Canon of Kalocsa. On April 11, 1851 he became the Bishop of the Diocese of Csanád.
In the written document of his time, Bishop Sándor Csajághy was mentioned as an excellent organizer. He restored the initial composition of the Diocese – 6 archdeaconries and 23 deaconries -, and continued his Episcopal visits. He organized annual religious exercises for priests held by monks. He also reformed the educational system of the priests and reorganized the seminary of the Diocese. He expected future priests to be able to hold masses in more than one language. In one of his decrees he said: „Because in our diocese it is a compulsory requirement for the ministers to speak more languages, I order the ministers to hold masses on Sundays and on holidays. It is our explicit demand – that each of our students -without exception – to be able to speak two languages impeccably.”
In 1854 Bishop Sándor Csajághy asked the town council to build chapels and provide means of transport for the priests that visited farms.
The Bishop was concerned not only with the education of the priests, but also with the education of the population, especially the younger generations. In 1855 he gave permission to found missions in villages. In 1858 he asked the representatives of some of the Poor School Sisters’ (Notre Dame) order from Munich, named after Our Lady to settle down in Temesvár (today Timişoara, Romania). Soon, first in Southern Hungary and later on in Transylvania there were many sisters teaching and educating in villages.
It is worth mentioning that he donated 60000 Forints for the controlling of the Tisa River. His first literary attempts dated back to the period when he was studying theology. His poems were Koszorú – Crown (1831) and Anastasia (1838). He wrote in the Növendék Papság Munkálatai- The Works of the Theology Students (1836-39); in the Egyházi Tár (1835: A kalocsai főegyházak leírása – The Description of the Churches in Kalocsa; published in the Sas magazine (Az írás eredetéről
-About the Origins of Writing); and in other magazines among which in Sion, Religio, Nevelés and Fasciculi Ecclesiastici; his writing about the union were published in the Wiener Kirchen-Zeitung and in the Figyelmező: A magyarhoni katholikus papság védelme – In the Defence of the Hungarian Catholic Priests; in the Oesterr. Correspondent against Lloyd: Der ungarische Clerus während der jüngsten Wirren (1849. Beilage zu Nr. 214); he wrote speeches for the church in the Pázmány Füzetek and in the Pátka Collection.
He was devoted to Our Lady Mary, in 1856 he proposed that the St. Mary’s worship services of May to be held, and he commissioned an altar for the cathedral in Temesvár in the honor of the Virgin Mary. The St Gellert altar as well as the marble tablet was placed in his memory. The inscription on the tablet is the following: „Vixit Dioecesi non diu sed totus – he did not, but he dedicated all his life to the diocese”. He was buried in the cathedral.
