Calvin Synod Herald, 1982 (82. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1982-12-01 / 6. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD coincide with the confirmation instruction being held in the church building. Bibles are confiscated by customs officials. It is impossible to buy a hymnbook in Rumania: they have been out of print for years. Publication of religious books and periodicals is extremely restricted. Theological literature sent from the West does not reach its destination. Church delegates visiting from abroad are not allowed to meet with their Hungarian colleagues freely. Pastors are forbidden to visit their parishioners in hospitals. All forms of religious youth work is strictly forbidden. Ministers caught convening the youth are promptly incarcerated and dismissed from their churches. The most painful loss in the life of the churches is the confiscation of church archives, antique chalices, altar cloths, antique Persian rugs, etc. Persian rugs were used to cut down the echo in the sanctuaries. These measures are directed exclusively against Hungarian churches. Act No. 63 of November 2nd, 1974, on the protection of the national cultural treasury, and Decree/ Law 207-1972 are major tools used to eradicate the history of the Hungarian churches. Under the above laws, the government nationalized all documents, official and private correspondence, memoirs, manuscripts, maps, films, slides, photos, sound-recordings, imprints, seals and like material, over 30 years old, from the possession of religious and cultural institutions and private citizens. The pretext is the “protection” of these documents, but the real intent is obvious from the crude manner in which the regulations have been enforced. The material was, in many cases without receipt, loaded into trucks and carted away. The historical order of the archives has become completely disrupted in the process, rendering scientific research for the next decades impossible. Thus, the Rumanian government has openly embarked on an escalated campaign against the Hungarian churches and people. This has been a tremendous blow especially against the Reformed Church which has been preserving in its archives the tradition of its religious and linguistic individuality, — 6 — dating back to the times of the Protestant Reformation. The aforementioned outrages form part of a systematic effort to rewrite the history of the region in order to suppress the significance of the indigenous Hungarian culture. Another means for achieving the same objective is to “facelift” the tombs and crypts of famous Hungarian families in the ancient cemeteries by allotting them to recently dead Rumanians. In this way, the ethnic composition of the former population, now dead, is restructured favorably. The Hungarian Protestant Theological Institute of Cluj (Kolozsvár) came into being in 1949 as a result of the forced merger of the independent Reformed, Evangelical, and Unitarian Seminaries. Thus, the Protestant churches have been deprived not only of their historical traditions, but also of their traditional self-determination. The curriculum and the student body is carefully supervised by the Ministry of Cults. The most serious blow to the future of the church is a recent decision of the Ministry of Cults allowing the registration of only six out of 37 candidates for the first year class of the 1982 — 83 Academic year. By cutting back the supply of future ministers, the Ceausescu Regime is paving the way for the complete eradication of the 800,000 member Reformed Church. This spiritual oppression and cultural genocide are aggravated by the physical suffering of the people. Frequent visitors to Rumania have noticed that the population is getting visibly thinner and thinner every year. This is not the result of a massive diet program, but simply of a food scarcity. In spite of the fact that Rumania received $11 billion in loans from the West, the country is de facto bankrupt. The recent rescheduling of debts will not solve its financial problems and will push the population into even greater misery. In order to delay the final day of reckoning, the Ceausescu Regime will not hesitate to sell the last morsel of bread out of the people’s mouths. The result of renewing Rumania’s most-favored-nation status will be not only tlje continued brutal oppression of the religious life of the Hungarian churches, but also the REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA physical ruin of the entire population. What Rumania needs is not foreign loans for its industrialization program, not exports, but simply food for its people. The United States can best help this unfortunate country by denying it most-favorednation status immediately. BRIEF NEWS AMERICAN HUNGARIAN FOUNDATION Eugene Fodor, editor and publisher of Fodor travel guide books, Andre Kertesz, artist photographer, and Eugene M. Lang, president of REFAC Technology Development Corporation received the George Washington Award Medallions of the American Hungarian Foundation at its 21st annual dinner on December 6th at The Plaza Hotel in' New York City. THE HUNGARIAN REFORMED FEDERATION The Hungarian Reformed Federation of America held a special convention in Pittsburgh on November 27th and 28th, and on the first evening rejected the possibility of consolidation with the William Penn Society. Approval would have required two-third majority, but the proposal was defeated 35 to 33, with 1 abstention. PITTSBURGH The Rev. Miklós Novak, pastor of the Pittsburgh Hungarian Reformed Church reports that the donations of his congregation and the donations of others have reached their destination this summer in Transylvania. Special donations were given to help the Sükő congregation to replace their destroyed building with a little House of Worship. We also noticed in the church’s newsletter that the treasurer notifies the congregation about their quarterly giving not by using names, but by using their envelope numbers only. TOLEDO At the Toledo Calvin United Church they have an ACTIVITIES SHEET or the WHAT CAN I DO LIST which has 6 listings for the CHRISTIAN EDUCATION, 16 listings for CHURCH ACTIVITIES, 5 listings for the MUSIC PROGRAM, 17 listings for SERVICE GROUPS, 3 listings for COMMUNITY COMMITMENTS and several openings for OTHER INTERESTS. If anyone can help with about 50 possible church functions, he or she is asked to check the appropriate box and mail the questionnaire back to the church. This form enables the leaders to receive the names and phone numbers of people who are willing to participate in the church's life. DEADLINES The Calvin Synod is published six times a year: in February, April, June, August, October and December. The deadline for each issue is the 15th of the previous month. FELLOWSHIP HOUR Many of our Hungarian Churches hold fellowship hours on a monthly and in some cases weekly bases between the English and Hungarian worship services. Coffee, tea and homemade pastries are served in the social halls of the churches by organizations or individuals.
