Jarek was the first Lutheran parish in South Batschka that in 1790 already had a pastor and since 1791 a chapel of their own.

(Link: “The Church of Jarek“) For this reason the Lutheran families in the neighbouring villages were looked after by the Lutheran pastor of Jarek. Most of the entries in the parish register of Jarek were marriages.

At Novi Sad and Peterwardein there were German workmen's families who first made use of Pastor Korossy sen.'s clerical functions, but in 1818 already Novi Sad became an independent parish with 254 persons at that time. From 1806 to 1808 there were 6 entries concerning Novi Sad in the parish registers of Jarek. In 1864 the parish of Novi Sad had 917 members already.

The few German Lutheran families from the mostly Hungarian village of Temerin also attended services at Jarek. In all there are 13 entries concerning them.

The first great migration of persons from Jarek to Katsch occurred in the year 1820. In that year the first entries concerning citizens of Katsch appeared in the parish register of Jarek, and in 1862 they came to an end. In all there were 107 families that in the course of time made use of the clerical functions of Jarek. In the beginning workmen’s families from Jarek settled down at this village that had had been exclusively Serbian in former times. The inhabitants were members of the Serbian frontier battalions (called Schaikists), who pursued farming to be self sufficient and did not like the German workmen very much, but they needed them. It can be assumed that most of the German Lutheran inhabitants of Katsch were closely related to families at Jarek and cultivated their contacts.

In 1861 there were already 72 families in the German Lutheran parish, and they decided to found an independent parish. On May 2, 1862, Wilhelm Unger was elected as first pastor, and at this time Katsch became the mother parish for the Lutheran inhabitants of Schaikasch Sv. Ivan and the other villages in the frontier district of Titel. From that date on there are no more entries concerning those villages in the parish registers of Jarek.

The German families in the other villages looked after by the parish of Jarek also partly came from Jarek. In some villages the people from Jarek formed the majority of the German inhabitants, in others the minority.

Above all this was the case in Gospodnjinci, Zabalj (Josefsdorf), Tschurug (Csurug), Djurdjevo, Schaikasch Sv. Ivan, Nadalj and Kovil.

An interesting observation is that from the summer of 1848 to 1852 during the four years when Jarek was destroyed and rebuilt (Link: The Revolution of 1848) there was no entry concerning the filial communities. Probably the Lutheran families of the villages mentioned above made use of the services of the parish at Novi Sad in those years.
 

Entries concerning filial communities in the parish registers of Jarek

There are no entries in the parish registers about the baptism of Lutheran children from the filial villages. It says in the source (loc. cit. p. 86): There are no entries in the parish registers about the baptism of Lutheran children from the filial villages. It says in the source (loc. cit. p. 86): “The number of clerical functions was great. Often as many children from the filial communities as from the mother parish itself were baptized, especially Katsch brought about a great number of functions because of its vicinity and the considerable number of its believers.”

That was also important as for the vicars' salaries, as they were they partly paid in kind, according to the size of the land owned. Besides fees (the so-called Stola fees) had to be paid for the vicar's individual functions. That applied to all the filial communities, i. e. Katsch and all the other Schaikist villages, but also the mother parish Jarek.

There is a 'contract' of 1844, where everything is listed exactly:

1.  Each couple married by the vicar pays a yearly matrimonial fee of 1 Austrian Gulden.

2.  Each small house without fields delivers 25 kg of well cleaned wheat per year.

3.  Each house with fields delivers 37 ½ kilograms of well cleaned wheat per year to the pastor.

4.  The Stola fees (to be paid once) are the same as in the mother parish:

       a.  baptism:_____________________________________________30 Austrian kreutzers
       b.  blessing of a young mother after six weeks:___________10 kreutzers
       c.  confirmation:___________________________________30 kreutzers
       d.  marriage:_______________________________________1 gulden and 30 kreutzers
       e.  burial with sermon:_______________________________1 gulden
       f.  simple burial:___________________________________30 kreutzers.

Whereas in the first and second half of the 19th century only some families had moved to the filial villages, the last great exodus occurred in 1885 to Budisava (Tiszakalmanfalva or Waldneudorf).


Besides the Hungarians and new citizens from Werbas, Bulkes and Altker the new settlers from Jarek were in the majority in this community. In the course of time more than 100 families settled beyond the old Roman entrenchment (“over the entrenchment in the forest”) and kept up close contacts with their relatives at Jarek in the following years. So you can say that almost every family at Jarek had members or relatives at the 'New Village'. In this way Budisava became the largest filial community of Jarek, though it formed a parish of its own from the foundation on, so that there are no entries concerning citizens of Budisava in the parish registers of Jarek.


The inhabitants of Jarek were accustomed to offering hospitality and at the great festivities, marriages and the parish fair (called 'Kerweih') they always heartily welcomed the relatives from the filial villages, and this was also the case the other way round.


So it came about that this smallest settlement founded by 80 families with 300 persons in Josef II's era became the nucleus of the Lutheran denomination in South Batschka in the course of time.

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