Calvin Synod Herald, 1985 (85. évfolyam, 1-5. szám)
1985-06-01 / 3. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD — 6 — REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA The Strawberry Preacher of Louisiana The strawberries on the menu at the annual spring meeting of old New Orleans Presbytery came as the gift of Rev. Alexander Bartus and the Hungarian Presbyterian Church of Albany. They had been cultivated by the pastor. Bartus was born in a two room house with clay floor and a thatched roof in Szabolcs megye Hungary, the 4th of April, 1892. His father migrated to Ohio at the end of 1899 and worked in coal mines. By 1901 he had saved enough to bring his wife, their children, Alexander and Elizabeth, and his sister to the States. In 1902 the Bartuses became the eighth Hungarian family to settle at Arpadhon, just south of Albany, Louisiana. For a time they lived in the Immigration House which had been set up for settlers who would work in the local sawmill. The sawmill wage of 50c per day provided the Bartus family with the cash to buy cut-over land at $10 per acre. By 1910 Alexander was number two man at the sawmill, earning $1.50 per day. The owner offered to send the young man to business college, but the Hungarian Church of Árpádhon had been received into the Presbytery of New Orleans in 1907, and young Alexander had received a sense of having been called to the ministry of the Gospel. He was received as a candidate the 1st of August 1910, and that fall entered Bloomfield College, Bloomfield, N.J. He worked his way through six years of preparatory school and college. He lost one year on account of illness. Then there were three years at Bloomfield Seminary. In summers he conducted Daily Vacation Bible Schools in Hungarian churches in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Having received his Bachelor of Divinity degree, he was licensed and ordained in his home church the 6th of April 1920 and dismissed to the Presbytery of Ottawa, U.S.A. to serve as an evangelist for the First Hungarian Presbyterian Church of Aurora, Illinois, and the West Side Reformed Church in Chicago. When he returned to Louisiana in the summer of 1921 his home church pressed their needs upon him, and he agreed to take the work there “on a trial basis.” He was still “trying it” until he retired the 31st of December 1967. He continued as Pastor Emeritus until his death. On the 18th of October 1921 Alexander Bartus was married to Aranka (Goldie) Szekely. To this union were bom seven children, six of whom survived: Margaret, Alex, Goldie, Louis, Louise (died at birth), Joseph, and Eugene. All of the six had at least three years of college, and five won a degree. The preacher was known to say that he raised and educated all his children off the profitss of his strawberry patch. He could hardly have done it with the modest income from the church. In 1950 he was stunned by a heart attack which kept him immobilized for months. His daughter, Margeret, brought him a book entitled, Thank God for My Heart Attack. When he glanced at the title he flung the volume against the wall. But later he turned the frustrations of his illness to advantage. He gave up his pipe. He forfeited his duties as managing editor and columnist of the Albany News. He decided to devote more attention to his family. For many years the Presbytery contributed to Bartus’ support. In addition to raising strawberries, other produce, hogs, sheep, and turkeys, Bartus worked as a high school teacher, as a journalist, as secretary of the Hungarian Farmers’ Association, as bookkeeper of the Albany Farm Bureau, as supervisor and later as secretary-treasurer of the Feliciana Soil Conservation District. At age 78 he completed prescribed work at Louisiana State University to qualify as administrator for the convalescent home he had been instrumental in starting, the first one in Livingston Parish. In 1951 The Progressive Farmer named him Rural Minister of the Year in Louisiana. The citation: “Preacher, teacher, editor, farmer, bookkeeper, community builder, the Rev. Alexander Bartus is one of the best loved men in the Florida Parishes.” As a spokesman for soil Stewardship Week in 1959 Bartus might have been heard as follows: "One might truly say we are God's people and custodians of His pastures. Ours is to make His laws function in the universe about us, it is important for us to remember that those natural laws are God’s laws, and to break them is just as sinful as to break the Command,nents. ” He believed that the land, and its resources, are God’s miracle at work and that if you care for the soil it will care for you. Every year for the fifteen years beginning in 1960 he spoke during Soil Stewardship Week on Channel 2 from New Orleans. The Hungarian Church which had been united with the Albany Church in 1964 was again organized as a congregation in 1974. When asked what advice he would offer young men cosidering the ministry as a vocation, he replied, “Total surrender. His work takes priority. ‘Be not afraid.’ He still takes care of even the fowls of the air.” The strawberry preacher was called to his reward the 2nd of May 1977. Presbytery’s memorial concluded with the prayer, “O Lord, let my end be like his/’ Inscribed on his tombstone in the Hungarian Cemetery are five words, Minister, Patriot, Man of God. The above sketch is taken from a paper by Rev. James William Anderson delivered to the Presbyterian Historical Society of the Southwest the 13th of February 1982. The dates for the next annual meeting of the Presbyterian Historical Society of the Southwest are 7 and 8 of March 1986 at Austin Seminary, Austin, Texas. Plan to be there! (The Presbyterian) I General Synod XV ] The General Synod XV had its meeting in Ames, Iowa State University June 27—July 2. Committee No. 28 discussed the “Human Rights Violations Against Minorities in the Socialist Republics of Romania and Czechoslovakia” — submitted by the Calvin Synod. The Eleventh General Synod of the U.C.C. resolved to support the legitimate strivings of minorities in the Socialist Republic of Romania — among them 2.5 million Hungarians, the largest minority in Eastern Europe — with respect to the freedom of exercising their fundamental human rights and cultural freedom; The Caribbean and North American Council of the World Alliance of the Reformed Churches, at its meeting on March 13, 1985, again expressed concern over continuing reports of lack of compliance with the religious position of the Helsinki Final Act in Romania where our Hungarian Reformed sisters and brothers live and minister under political oppression, economic deprivation, cultural alienation, and religious exploitation which includes restricted admittance to theological seminary, persecution and incarceration of faithful pastors, recycling Bibles into toilet paper. In Czechoslovakia simular patterns exist against the almost one million Hungarian minority especially in regard to the use of native tongue in education, and those who publicly demanded that the Czechoslovak government fulfill the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act, have been imprisoned without trial. Be it resolved that the Fifteenth General Synod urges the government of the United States of America to terminate the 1975 United States — Romanian Trade Agreement and The Most Favored Nation treatment with the Socialist Republic of Romania, unless changes are demonstrated in regard to human rights and cultural freedom exercises. The Fifteenth General Synod of the U.C.C. urges the national delegation to the Review Committee of the Helsinki Final Act to press signatory nations to full compliance of all Basket III issues, but especially those that have the direct effect of the witness of the Reformed Church in Eastern Europe. * * * The Calvin Synod Honored. The bishop of the Calvin Synod was asked to read the Bible in Hungarian at the opening church service held in Stevens Hall of the Iowa State University and to give the benediction also in English and Hungarian at the close of the Holy Communion celebration. The following days the evening devotions had Scripture reading in different languages (Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, ect.) This is the first time in the history of the G.S. meetings that Hungarian and other minority languages were used. MINISTERIAL QUALITIES What qualities are American and Canadian church people looking for in their young ministers? The results show that humility (willingness to serve without regard for acclaim), honesty (personal integrity, the ability to honor commitments by carrying out promises without compromise), and Christian example are the most sought-after qualities. Special pastoral skills rank fourth. —Christianity Today—
