Calvin Synod Herald, 1989 (89. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)
1989-07-01 / 1. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD- 8 -REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA American Hungarians The Eighth Tribe of Magyars We know from history that when the Magyars entered into the Carpathian Basin in the year of 895 A.D. to establish their permanent home under the leadership of Prince Árpád, they consisted of Seven Tribes: MAGYAR (the largest, after which the Nation was named); NYÉK (meaning, fortified place); KÜRTGYARMAT (‘snowstorm’); TARJÁN (‘high-office’); JENŐ (‘councillor’); KÉR (‘giant’); and KESZI (‘remnant’). We Magyars in America therefore are called ‘THE EIGHTH TRIBE’. I thought it is indeed more than meet to reprint here a classical poem written with that title by Rev. Pál Kántor. A nyolcadik törzs Keleti mezőkről jöttünk, dübörgött a föld körülöttünk és ösvényeket szült a rét. Vándorként kerestünk hazát, majd leráztuk az út porát, és megpihent a fáradt nép. Ezer év sem volt mögöttünk, máris új hazát kerestünk, más földön szültek az anyák. Három földrész vándorútja fiainkat szqjelszórta, messzementek az unokák. A nyolcadik törzsből jöttünk, kéklő óceán mögöttünk, és az ezeréves hazánk. Amerika lesz otthonunk, ahol magyarok maradunk, amíg magyarul szól a szánk. The poem above is an impressive Hungarian composition about us and our fate in this ‘New Land of the Free’. It has no English translation. Here is a chalenge! General Synod of the Reformed Church in Hungary The 9th General Synod of The Reformed Church in Hungary opened January 18, 1989 in Budapest. The 96 member Synod elected Dr. Elemér Kocsis, bishop of the Transtibiscan Church District as its new president. Dr. Károly Tóth, bishop of the Danubian Church District became the Synod’s vice-president while Mrs. Magda Szabó, the celebrated novelist, was elected lay vice-president. The term of office of the synod members is 12 years. H. H. H. Hungary: History and Hope “In the forefront of Eastern Europe’s march toward a more democratic future, Hungary still struggles, in the era of glasnost, to come to terms with its past. The depth of Hungarians’ yearning for liberty was on vivid display Friday, June 16, as hundreds of thousands of mourners turned out in Budapest to attend the longoverdue burial of a national hero: Imre Nagy, the one-time prime minister executed for leading the 1956 uprising against Soviet domination. Budapest’s communist leaders have rehabilitated Nagy and his colleagues as part of a broad push toward pluralism. As it moves toward multiparty elections, expanded civil liberties and an economy that bends its socialist theory to market forces, Hungary is an example of the rebirth of a Central Europe that can bridge the ideological chasm between East and West. The visionaries of 1956 may have died, but the ideas they fought for live on: citizens free to choose their own course, within a Europe free to determine its own future. ” (P.D.) On July 12 in Budapest President Bush met with Hungary’s leaders in talks aimed at dramatizing U.S. support for political and economic reforms undertaken by the most liberal communist regime in Eastern Europe. The President of the United States declared — “Hungary is the threshold of a historic change.” He was given a piece of the tom-down Iron-Curtain between East and West as a sovunier. The governing Council of the Reformed Church of Hungary officially appealed to the Hungarian Government to rehabilitate 90 ministers of the Church, who were sentenced and imprisoned unjustly in the past. Their list of names was forwarded to the Justice Department at Budapest. We might as well try the principles of the Geneva Reformation, which gave us our Constitution! Everything else failed! No other road will ever lead us to make East and West ever meet!” Peace Corps goes to Hungary Trooping through the Iron Curtain this fall will be a contingent of Peace Corps volunteers, the first to serve in a European or Eastern bloc nation. President Bush announced the program at the Karl Marx University of Economic Sciences in Budapest, during a speech in which he courted Hungarian public opinion and encouraged continued political and economic reforms. Shortly after Bush’s announcement, the Peace Corps office in Washington, D.C., began receiving some 300 phone calls a day from Americans interested in joining the program, one of the larger responses for a specific country. Because of East-West hostilities and inaccessibility, Americans and Eastern Europeans have woefully stilted images of each other. In rushing to woo Hungary, Bush may have opened the door to the Peace Corps becoming all foreign relations exclusively. Will the TWAIN ever - ever meet? Rudyard Kipling: "East is East and West is West, the Twain shall never meet!" On July 15, 1989 the group of seven major democracies in Paris in the Arche de la Defense building issued a „Declaration on East West Relations”. They agreed to give assistance to Hungary and Poland. At the same time they condemned the bloody repression of freedom endevors in China. President Bush carried with himself to France, celebrating the 200th anniversary, a piece of barbed wire fence that has been tom down along the frontiers between Hungary and Austria. The president of the United States declared at Karl Marx University in Budapest: For the first time the Iron Curtain has begun to part — between East and West — “and Hungary is leading the way!” Hungary promissed to have free elections in 1990. At the end of World War I. George Bernard Shaw said: “We might as well try Christianity, everything else failed!” Bancroft, the greatest American historian, said: “The United States of America is the gift of John Calvin!”
