Calvin Synod Herald, 1994 (94. évfolyam, 2-6. szám)
1994-07-01 / 4. szám
CfiLVIN SYNOD HERALD- 7 -REFOMffTÜSOK LflPJfl ®=®^f ^!® T63! ®<&f® Deep nostalgia was prevalent everywhere during the first week of June, as the Nation celebrated the 50th anniversary of the June 6, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy, which resulted in the destruction of Hitler's Third Reich. Tears flowed like blood at Omaha Beach, as we were watching the television presentations day after day. "At this place, let us honor all the Americans who lost their lives in World War II," President Clinton told about 8,000 Americans who gathered at the Normandy American Cemetery. "They were the fathers we never knew, the uncles we never met, the friends who never returned, the heroes we can never repay," he said. Many in the crowd sobbed quietly as the sunlight broke through the clouds and reflected off the gravestones of the 9,386 Americans buried on a green hillside above Omaha Beach. They were young men "who gave their yesterdays for our tomorrows," as one sign over the gate of one hero's cemetery says. Among them, hundreds of American Hungarians. The writer of these lines alone officiated at the burial ceremonies of 36 young heroes in Cleveland, whose graves are marked with small white crosses at the soldiers' section of Highland Cemetery. We still do not know how many hundreds more all over the nation. More than 200,000 soldiers who were wounded and sick were transported by airplane back home just from the European theatre of war. Life went on here back home on its everyday routine road. Just one interesting glimpse of everyday life in Cleveland from back then from Jim Konkoly's scrapbook (a Hungarian news writer): CBS Radio Network star Jimmy "Schnozzola" Durante was scheduled to perform in Cleveland on June 10. In a half-page ad, Durante said he was coming here to help celebrate radio station WGAR's move on the radio band to 1220. "That means", Durante said, "better reception for listeners! It means more audience for us! And listeners will be so pleased, maybe they'll buy more of our sponsor's products! "And maybe then the sponsor (Camel Cigarettes) will give us a raise! (And they did!) Many Cleveland Magyar Club members attended the Hollywood Hungarian's performance on June 10,1944. Later, in 1959, the Cleveland Magyar Club was even co-sponsor to "Schnozzola's" return visit to Bethlen Hall. Life brings moving times of recollections, both of sorrows and of joys, occasions of tears and laughter, victories and defeats. □ □□ A Letter of Deep Concern Regarding the Fatal Statement of WARC's European Section Dr. Milan Opocensky, Gen. Secretary The European Center of the World Federation of Reformed Churches Geneva, Switzerland I have read your blunt message to the bishops of the Hungarian member churches in regard to a proposed General Synod of Hungarian Churhees (EMRZS) world-wide. Your suggestion that the Bishops' explanation sounds like the basis for a partisan ethnic agenda is just not true. They don't want to create another kind of nationalism. As part of the human family all of us are challenged to find a higher identity which is the strongest one: the children of God - a gift of the Holy Spirit that allows us to see people, minorities or not, as our brothers and sisters who deserve respect for their lives, faith and welfare. It is an identity stronger than any flag or religion. The Hungarian Reformed Churches have no hidden agenda and so need no defensive posture. We firmly believe that men and women will find one another in true comradeship and fellowship only when they find on another in God our Maker and our Redeemer in Jesus Christ. Only a Church made up of people like that, who are reconciled even as nations, can exercise real spiritual power in this world. Therefore I am looking for more than an apology on your part. I kindly ask you not to feel threatened and thereby to allow the Geneva Center to become a center of division instead of an instrument of reconciliation and confessing our unity in Jesus Christ. We are told in the Bible that the early Church "began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." There was nothing provincial about them. They had an international gospel. Differences in language and culture and race and nationality were no barriers to them. The Word of the Spirit was truly ecumenical and today the Hungarian Reformed Churches want to be spokesmen for the Spirit of God in the very same way. In obedience to Jesus Christ, Faithfully yours, William D. Bonis, Ph.D. Em. Professor of Philosophy Pastor of the Hung. Ref. Church of LA. Calvin Synod of the United Church of Christ in the U.S.A. I T
