Calvin Synod Herald, 1978 (78. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1978-01-01 / 1-2. szám
4 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD "TIMELY QUESTIONS OF OUR CHURCH POLICY" An interview with State Secretary Imre Miklós, president of the State Office for Church Affairs The August 20 number of the Budapest daily paper Magyar Hirlap carried a full-page statement by State Secretary Imre Miklós, president of the State Office for Church Affairs, about some timely questions of Hungarian statechurch policy. The introductory question of the interviewer quoted the opinion of some who thought that the recent events bearing on state-church relations had marked a turning point in principle and practice with regard to the system of contacts between the state and the churches. “The events bearing on church policy during the past decade.. . should rather be considered signs indicating the continuing improvement of the relations between the state and the churches. They constitute a series of events which are welcomed by those working for building up the advanced type of socialist society, equally by religious people and those professing another ideology.“ A reply to a further question states: “In the socialist society all the churches and religious denominations enjoy the same rights. When it comes to assessing state-church relations, the size of a church or denomination does not matter." As to the favorable turn in state-church relations, events bearing on the Roman Catholic Church have of late undoubtedly been speeded up, and the conception and practice of the Roman Catholic Church is approximating what was earlier envisaged and put into practice by the Protestant churches. Answering a further question by the newsman, State Secretary Imre Miklós outlined the historically important milestones of state-church relations, beginning with the first attempts at orientation by the Protestant churches thirty years ago to appraising the most recent changes bearing on the Roman Catholic Church. State Secretary Miklós explains in detail that the church policy of the Hungarian state is based on principles and is averse both to unprincipled compromises and purely tactical considerations. “The economic foundations of the communist society of the future seems as yet to be far away ahead of us. In the course of the development towards that end we should take for granted the presence of the religious ideology. But we stress that we by no means regard this as a permanent state of affairs but hold that its trend — which may also involve transitional fluctuations — works, as by law. for the victory of the scientific world view, of the ‘transparaently relations’ and the dissipation of the ‘mystical blanket of fog.’ It is only by taking this approach that we can take the position that, as to investigating the possible relationship beween Marxism and Christianity, their inherent ideological contradictions exclude the possibility of an ideological convergence. The communists do not give up their effort to -pread their scientific world view, but they do not wish that Christians give up the practice of the religion.” As to the principles of the church policy of the Hungarian State, there will be no change. To illustrate this statement let the following quotation be given: “At a Budapest meeting of the party activists when practical steps to implement the resolutions of the Xlth Congress were discussed, János Kádár said this: ‘Also at this meeting I note that, with regard to the believers and the churches, we are in an entirely different situation than we were five or ten years ago. The churches, without exception, are loyal to our system, they accept socialism as the goal, the programme of the people of this country. Would it be possible that, by doing this, the churches prolonged their own existence? Possibly. They, too, live in the socialist society. We, however, while working for revolutionary ends, must join forces with all factors willing to cooperate with us. One might say that this is a compromise. One might call it that, of course. We learned from Lenin what we also represent: every compromise is acceptable if it furthers our revolutionary cause, and only that compromise is acceptable that does not harm the cause of the revolution. This is not a compromising of principles or of ideology but political cooperation in the interests of definite objectives. If we live in a mixed society composed of materialists and non-materalists, then it will be in this way that we shall build up the socialist society, only seeing to it that it be built up as quickly as possible, as solidly as possible, and what matters is to get forward as soon as possible.’ ” In this connection State Secretary Imre Miklós makes this statement: “The correctness of our church policy is proved by the fact that the churches find their place in the Hungarian People’s Republic. We can say that the state of affairs today is well-consolidated and well-balanced. The relation between the state and the churches is being shaped in a way congruent with the objective interests of socialist construction and also in a way that is affirmed by the churches. The most important element of this relationship is — one that is accepted on both sides — that the maintenance of the normalized relationship between the state and the churches as well as the political and social cooperation between Marxists and believers in matters concerning the whole society are both necessary and possible. In this way the politics of the state possesses the support of the extended masses of the believers, and religious people also take part in the work of building up socialism without any compulsion to give up their religious conviction.” In the following part of the interview State Secretary Miklós comes to speak of the practical aspects of statechurch relations. “It is in terms of a correct partnership that our relationship with the churches is developing. During the past decade many important problems were solved. 1 mention but a few: all the Roman Catholic dioceses have their archbishops or diocesan bishops, resp., by the pope’s appointment; we uniformly regulated first the confirmation practice of the Protestants, then the Roman Catholic religous instruction in the churches which, before this normalization, had sometimes been the source of local conflicts... the Lutheran Theological Academy moved into a new building; church pensioners, too, became entitled to travel at reduced rate; we declared the Nazarenes a recognized denomination; the Reformed Church recently published the first number of the new periodical Confessio — and I could go on in this way.” State Secretary Miklós pointed out that life, of course, kept on producing matters calling for disposal. Thus negotiations are in progress about several matters. As to the Protestant churches, “we are considering the subsidizing of the church-paid old age and widows’ pensions under our social insurance system and similar matters.” The last question of the interviewer was this: “Let me ask but one question. This might be a consequence drawn from the foregoing statements. Would you say that the future will he marked by the continuation and deepening of the
