The Protestant Reformation has spread rapidly in Transylvania following Hungary's collapse, and the semi-independent Ottoman vassal state, under the religiously tolerant Prince István Báthory, is on the way to becoming one of Europe's Protestant strongholds.

Transylvania's Germans adopt Lutheranism, and many Hungarians convert to Calvinism.

The Protestants print and distribute catechisms in the Romanian language, but fail to lure many Romanians from Orthodoxy.

The Transylvanian Diet approves a law guaranteeing freedom of worship and equal rights for Transylvania's four "received" religions: Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Unitarian.

The law is one of the first of its kind in Europe, but the religious equality it proclaims is limited.

Orthodox Romanians, for example, are free to worship, but their church is not recognized as a received religion.