Calvin Synod Herald, 1995 (95. évfolyam, 1-5. szám)

1995-09-01 / 5. szám

CALVIN SYNOD HERALD 5 AMERIKAI MAGYAR REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA Sermon preached by Dr. Stephen Szabó on St. Stephen's Day, August 20, 1995 at the pulpit of the West Side Cleveland church. We are printing the sermon upon the request of the hearers. Let tbe nation be t(?e Nation! Let tf;e cburcb be tf?e Cburcbl Text: O.T. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, whose people has chosen as his own." Psalm 33:12 Text: N.T. "You are no longer aliens in a foreign land or commoners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and members of God's household." Eph. 2:19 By the grace of God, we American Hungarians, and descendants of magyars, have two nations we can claim as our own. One at the other side and one on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. This day today happens to be St. Stephen's Day, August 20. "Saint" be­ing used by us as an adjective, since we Protestants have no cannonized saints to worship. We only worship God and Him alone! The Nation of Hungary few months hence, will celebrate its 1100th Anni­versary as a Nation. Saint Stephen, the first king, is the one who made the Na­tion a Christian Nation in 1000 A.D., 995 years ago. At the same time, the present year happens to be the 219th year of the birth of our American Nation. We cel­ebrated the birthday on the Fourth of July. Both Nations were declared to be Nations under God! Today is the actual Day of August 20th. St. Stephen's Day. This is the day, when in Budapest the annual grand procession is marching along carrying, the famous relic, the right hand of Saint Stephen. How could I be able to resist the temptation of personal reference, when your speaker today happens to be the object of the world-known St. Stephen's right-hand trial. On August 20, 1934, when the same procession made its annual march, the radio-broadcaster (who happened to be apiarist priest by the name of Ft. Géza Kudelka, sounded a provoking remark by an­nouncing to the whole of the Hungar­ian Nation: "Now the saintly relic of St. Stephen's right hand is approaching me! This is the moment when all Hun­garians will have to go down on their knees together with me in silent wor­ship!" This was the remark that irritated your speaker and compelled to write an article of protest. We Protestants, one third of the Nation, simply just could not go on our knees before a relic. We do not mind if Roman Catho­lics do, because we believe in unlim­ited religious liberty for all, since the very first religious liberty decision came from our own land exactly 427 years ago, nb. Tordai Ország-gyűlés 1568 A.D. But we cannot tolerate others to compel us to worship relics of saints, even if some are authentic, more or less when the one in question is an Egyp­tian mummy-hand of a twelve year old boy! On Rome's instigation, the trial started. The great Bishop Balthazár of the Reformed Church of Hungary rushed to the Royal Palace to Regent Miklós Horthy, himself a Calvinist, more­over the descendent of one of our bi­shops at Nagybánya. Bishop Balthazár told the Regent: "It is a shame that your Majesty marches behind that 'piece of bone' yourself!" To which Horthy an­swered: "The heck I do! I march in front of it!" (Unfortunately, the head of the State had no choice - even the Com­munist ones during the Russian occu­pation did the same.) To cut a long story short, court after court followed, all the way to the supreme court. Paper sen­tences were pronounced in succes­sion; the entire West was upset; articles after articles appeared. At the very end, the Regent nullified all court decisions in the good interest of the Nation and ordered all trial papers to be burned. In legal language: There was no 'St. Stephen's right-hand trial in Hungary!?' □□□ And now coming back to our Nation here in America, may I be permitted similarly to include some other personal references for the sake of illumination! Just a few weeks ago, it was the Day of the Fourth of July, Independence Day. With the signing of the Declara­tion of Independence on the 4th of July, 1776, we became a new Nation, a "Na­tion under God". In red, white and blue the whole Nation was attired, with the flaire of fan­­fair and blazing of rockets we did sing: "Happy Birthday, America!" from ocean to ocean. In 219 years, we have been the wealthiest Nation on the Globe and, so to say, a world-ruling power. In the 50's and 60's, I had 3 medical doctors and 3 judges in my own con­gregation. (First Hungarian Reformed in Cleveland. 1 municipal judge, 1 state court judge, and 1 federal judge, all presbyters.) My parishioners used to tell me: “You can get out of all troubles". I was involved in many fancy events. Even in the inauguration of the Gover­nor with Invocation. One of the out­standing ones was the speech at the installation of County Commissioner Frank Pokorny. In the courthouse of Cuyahoga County at Cleveland, Ohio, are in­scribed these words: "Obedience to Law is Liberty.“ That there is a signifi­cant omission in the inscription. It comes from Richard Hooker, the six­teenth-century author and stylist; and what Hooker wrote was this, "Obedi­ence to Divine Law is Liberty." I pointed out the fact that the inscrip- Continued on page 6

Next

/
  • Layout
  • Zoom
  • Rotation
Thumbnails
Contents