Hungarian prelate, church historian, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, member of Parliament.
As a Member of Parliament he served his country and favoured progress. He came from a middle class-family; he graduated from high-school in Miskolc (1812) and studied philosophy (1812) and theology (1817) in Eger. In 1817 he was ordered priest and in the same year he became Doctor in Theology. Beside Hungarian, he could also speak German, French, English, Italian and Slavic. He was an erudite. His considerable amount of background knowledge in church law, his balanced attitude, his logical thinking and rhetorical abilities made had great impact on his fellow citizens. In 1825 he was a vicar in Sajóvárkony, between 1825-1829 in Sárospatak, and in 1829 he became canon, and in 1830 taught in the Theological Faculty in Eger. In 1830 he became the ambassador of the Egers chapter.
In 1834 the archbishop of Eger asked for his ordination as a bishop of Csanád county (today Cenad, Romania) which took place in 1835. He managed the Diocese of Csanád thoroughly: he visited the episcopate several times, he founded 23 new parishes, commissioned the building of new churches, elementary schools, nurseries and an asylum for old priests, which he sponsored with 10000 Forints. He had a very large library consisting of 5000 volumes. He sponsored the dioceses he was in charge of several times: the building of the county hall in Mako (Csanád), the extension of the Episcopal Library, the scholarships for the students of theology. In Temesvár (today Timişoara, Romania where he resided, he sponsored and intervened for the building of the Philosophy and Law Academy – Lyceum Temesváriense -, he also provided the financial background for the functioning of the Academy, and hired only professors with a degree, demanding high standard teaching. He promoted the use of the Hungarian language in the Academy as well as in public life and supported the work of the language reformers. Between 1841-1847 as the inspector of the School Distric in Nagyvárad (today Oradea, Romania) he made significant efforts for the development of the educational system.
He was given the Saint-Stephen and the Saint-Lipót order and the title of interior counsellor (1841). On July 6, 1843 he was given the gift-deed for Krivina in Krassó county (today Caraş, Romania) and the noble title which was extended to his brother’s children as well. In the same year he became member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His knowledge of the law was excellent and he was a very good law-maker. He was a member of the committee that set the stage for the penal code. Between November 1840 and April 1841 he was in Rome to promote mixed marriages, the legalization of the marriages held by protestant priests, as a result of his efforts, in 1844 the church law came into being. In 1848, during a parliamentary session, it was Lonovits who announced in the name of the Bench of Bishops “renounced the tenth, as a sacrifice for his country”.
In 1848, after Pryker’s death, Ferdinand V made him archbishop of Eger. He went to Pest for the Papal Bull, but it did not arrive. He went to Marienbad for treatment. After that he was arrested in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) and held captive in Pest. Because of his active role in the Parliament, as well as because of being in the Peace Treaty Delegation that went to general Windischgrätz, and also because of Haynau’s personal revenge he fall from grace. Archbishop Scitivszky’s intervention he was detained in the Capuchin cloister in Buda, was not court-martialled, but he was demanded to give his Archiepiscopal and Episcopal ranks up (which he did in March, 1850), and to settle down outside his country or the city of Vienna.
He was detained in the cloister of Melk, were he continued working in the filed of literature and history. His three volume work entitled Népszerű egyházi archeológia (Popular Church Archeology) published in 1857 in Pest and another book entitled A jozefinizmus és az egyházat illető legújabb császári rendelvény (The Josephinism and the Kaisers’sOorders. Concerning the Church) were published in 1851 in Vienna. From 1854 he was allowed to travel to Vienna where he met Széchenyi. He became friend with Széchenyi, who at that time was living in Döbling and was already ill. The Pope gave made him titular archbishop of Amasia. When Zsigmond Ormós, the Sub-prefect of Temes county (today Timiş county, Romania) visited him, he was already ill.
He became assessor of the Seven Members’ Court of Appeal. In 1886 he was appointed archbishop of Kalocsa, but because of his severe pharyngitis he had to decline it. In 1867 he died and was buried in the cathedral of Kalocsa.
