Bethlen Évkönyv, 1991-1992 (Ligonier)
Rev. Dr. Alexander Havadtoy: Meeting my listeners I had never known
authorities still refuse to return the church schools and colleges that were built with the pennies of the parishioners already during the XVI Century Reformation. They are also refusing to re-open the Hungarian language Bolyai University. Without the church schools, the very being of the 2.5 million Hungarian population of Transylvania is jeopardized. In several communities Hungarian language State Schools were permitted to open last year. While I was there, the authorities ordered in many of them the opening of one strictly Romanian class this September. Once the camel’s nose enters the tent, the Hungarian State Schools are doomed. This is the reason that the church are demanding the return of their own school building, for they want to be the masters of their own educational system. In Hungary the economic climate has changed for the better. American and Western businessmen find many opportunities for investments. Budapest is filled with Western investors eager to start new enterprises in a country, where the people are hard-working, diligent and reliable, and foreign capital is heartly welcome. The agricultural sector is particularly productive. Hungary has a sizable agricultural over production which it cannot sell. It would be very advantageous if the Western credits to help Russia purchuse food would be structured, at least partly, through Hungary. Thus they could deliver to the starving Russians the Hungarian agricultural surpluses. There is much more problem with the sheer physical and spiritual life of the nation. During the foreign occupation, 4.5 million abortions were performed, a loss that a small nation of 10 million people will not be able to remedy in the near future. In spite of the large number of Transylvanians who migrate to Hungary, the nation loses 17,000 people every single year. The childbearing mothers are simply missing, due to the abortion laws of the past 45 years. There are serious problems in the spiritual realm also. A whole generation grew up without any religious education. The stories of the Bible, the church services and traditions are completely foreign to them. Since there Christian identity is shaky, so is also their national identity. Our true literature, 22
