known as the Apponyi Act, named after education minister Count Albert Apponyi. The new act stipulated that the teaching of Hungarian, as one of the subjects, must be included in the curriculum of non-state owned four years elementary schools in the frame-work of the compulsory schooling, as a condition for the non-state owned schools to receive state-financing. Non-government organizations such as the Upper Hungary Magyar Educational Society supported Magyarization at a local level. Ethnic tension intensified when 15 Slovaks were killed during a riot on occasion of the consecration of a new church at Černová / Csernova near Rózsahegy / Ružomberok (see Černová tragedy). The local inhabitants wanted the popular priest and nationalist politician Andrej Hlinka to consecrate their new church. Hlinka contributed significantly to the construction of the church, but his bishop Alexander Párvy suspended him from his office and from exercising all clerical functions because of Hlinka's involvement in the national movement. This raised a wave of solidarity with Hlinka from across all today's Slovakia. The villagers tried to achieve a compromise solution and to cancel the suspensions or to postpone consecration until the Holy See decides about the Hlinka's case. Párvy refused to consent and appointed ethnic Slovak dean Martin Pazúrik for the task. Pazúrik, as well as Hlinka, was active in the election campaign but supported Hungarian and Magyarone politicians and continuously adopted anti-Slovak attitude. The church had to be consecrated by force with the police assistance. Given where the event occurred, all 15 local gendarmes who participated in the subsequent tragedy had Slovak origin. In the stress situation, the gendarmes shot dead 15 protesters among a crowd of app. 300–400 villagers who tried to avoid the priests' convoy to enter their village. All this added to Slovak estrangement from and resistance to Hungarian rule, and the incident raised international attention on violation of national rights of non-Hungarian minorities. Before the outbreak of World War I, the idea of Slovak autonomy became part of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's plan of federalization of the monarchy, developed with help of the Slovak journalist and politician Milan Hodža. This last realistic attempt to tie Slovakia to Austria-Hungary was abandoned because of the Archduke's assassination, which in turn triggered World War I. Czechoslovakia Formation of Czechoslovakia After the outbreak of World War I the Slovak cause took firmer shape in resistance and in determination to leave the Dual Monarchy and to