Dénesi Tamás (szerk.): Collectanea Sancti Martini - A Pannonhalmi Főapátság Gyűjteményeinek Értesítője 7. (Pannonhalma, 2019)
II.Közlemények
190 Várszegi Asztrik OSB Asztrik Várszegi OSB Inter arma non semper silent musae! The idea and practice of ecumenism in the life of a Pannonhalma during the dictatorship of the Party State After 1950, the Benedictine Order – together with three other religious orders – was allowed to run two houses with two secondary schools (in Pannonhalma and Győr) within the framework of restricted numbers controlled by the State. The Catholic Church in Hungary obtained few and filtered pieces of information about the events and theological ideas of the Second Vatican Council. Pannonhalma and Győr proved to be an exception in a certain sense. Besides the daily routine of prayer and work, the Benedictine community searched for points of direction through their intense intellectual life, and the juniors of the Order were also trained in this open spirit. The monks of the monastery in Pannonhalma and the Lutheran and Calvinist pastors living in the vicinity formed a special, close and fraternal relationship. The protestant pastors were regular guests of Pannonhalma where they gave lectures and even held an “exceptional” meeting for pastors, attended divine services, and invited the Benedictines to preach and give lectures in their congregations. In the two Benedictine secondary schools, the sons of protestant pastors were also taught. Between 1966 and 1989, the theological students were conscripted for military service – irrespective of their religious denomination. In respect of this, the power wanted to impair the sense of vocation of the young students of theology. However, the time spent together in the Hungarian People’s Army bore manifold results: Biblereading and praying together, providing mutual fraternal help, making friends – all this extended and intensified ecumenism. The relationship between Taizé and Pannonhalma started in the middle of the 1960s. Brother Rudolf Stöck visited the monastery, and Father László Cziráki was the first to go to Taizé from Pannonhalma. The visit of the Prior of Taizé, Roger Schütz was prevented by the State Office for Church Affairs, nevertheless the relationship between Taizé and Pannonhalma has remained alive up to the present day. The existence of the Benedictine monastic community in Pannonhalma was shrewdly taken advantage of by the ecclesiastical policy branded by János Kádár on occasions when – for foreigners – the State wanted to demonstrate the freedom of religion. On his official visit to Hungary in 1979, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Donald Coggan visited Pannonhalma as well. On leavetaking he declared that Pannonhalma was the culmination of his visit. The ecumenic efforts and connections were controlled and put to use by the apparatus of state security. In the middle of the 1960s, on the initiative of the Benedictines and a Lutheran professor, Ernő Ottlyk, the Secretary of Ecumenism was about to be established in Budapest. Ottlyk frequented Pannonhalma, and it was through him that the Hungarian Benedictines got acquainted with Benedictine monk of Chevetogne, Belgium, Father Bonifatius, who was interested in the
