Evangéliumi Hírnök, 1994 (86. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1994-08-01 / 8. szám
1994. augusztus 9. oldal keresztyénséget is megpróbálja megosztani a Sátán, felhasználva néha jószándékú, de helytelen útra tért mozgalmakat is. Számtalan mozgalomról, gyülekezetről, egyházról hallunk, amelyik a Szentiélekről/ Szentszellemről beszél, és főleg azokról a különleges jelenségekről, melyek ámulatba ejtik az embereket, s talán nem is tudjuk hirtelen, mi a probléma, de érezzük, hogy valami nincs rendjén tanításukkal. Legtöbbször az a baj, hogy ott nem a Szentlélek Úristenről van szó, hanem valami más szellemiségről, valami emberi erőt meghaladó, ámulatba ejtő erőről, amitől legjobb távol tartani magunkat. Az Úr Jézus Krisztus szavai alapján azt is mondhatom, hogy a Szentlélek sem nagyobb Őnála. Egyébként az érzelmekre hatni akaró, csodagyártó régi és újabb mozgalmaknak igazában nem sok közük van a Szentiélekhez. Meg vagyok róla győződve, hogy azt, aki elhitte és nem felejti Jézus Krisztusnak ezeket a szavait: „ Nékem adatott minden hatalom mennyen ésföldön "azt nem fogja egykönnyen tévútra vezetni az emberi tanítások semmiféle régi vagy új változata. Nekünk, akik innen tekintünk az abszolút létező felé — az Ige kijelentése ez: Jézus Krisztus az út az Istenhez; Jézus Krisztus, aki a legnagyobb, hiszen Néki adatott minden hatalom mennyen és földön. Jöjj hát te is, velem együtt Őhozzá. S ne érd be soha kevesebbel! A legnagyobb, Jézus Krisztus tanítványai lehetünk! Nincs ennél nagyszerűbb. Adjunk hálát ezért Néki. Herjeczki Géza A verseskönyvet a szerző címén rendelhetjük meg (Rév. Géza Herjeczki, 1370 Michigan Blvd., Lincoln Park, MI48146). Ára hét dollár, postaköltséggel együtt. AMERICAN-HUN G ARI AN HYMNAL — Published 40 Years ago — In the December issue of our Gospel Messenger, Rev. Herjeczki wrote an article on the 40th Anniversary of the publication of our American-Hungarian Hymnal. As I sit here and reflect upon the publication of this hymnal, I see the faces of many of our devoted men and women of the Lord who worked and sacraficed their time and money to complete a project that was so sorely needed at that time. It was post war years and we felt that we where losing our young people to our English speaking churches, because they did not fully understand the language of the church at that time. Then too, our young men and women returned home from the wars and many of them married into American and other ethnic groups. The leadership of our Convention therefore felt it absolutely necessary to provide services and music in both the Hungarian and the English languages. They felt that in order to retain our ethnic identity, it would be necessary for us to provide two language services and hymnals. The prime mover in this effor was the president of our Union, the Rev. Frank Vér. He not only was the prime mover, but he also provided much of the finances for the project. I can still picture the Rev. Vér exhorting us complete the work that was assigned to us by the Convention. The Rev. Alexander Kinda was appointed chairman of the Hymnal Committee. He and the Rev. Gabriel Pet re worked on choosing the hymns which would be included in the hymnal. Unfortunately however, we had a very limited number of hymns to work with that were already translated into the Hungarian language. Consequently it was necessary for us to translate hymns from the English language into Hungarian. This was a very difficult task since the Hungarian language is a very romantic one and we had no lyricist as such to do the proper translating. Thus we had to take poetic license in many of our translations. Most of this was done by the Rev. Alexander Kinda and the Rev. Gabriel Petre. The final draft of each translations was sent to Dr. Béla Udvarnoki, who placed the final approval upon the work. The publication of the Hymnal was made in 1953. The work however began in 1948. Most of the work of assembling and colating was made in Bridgeport, Connecticut by my wife Ethel and me. This was a gargantuan task that required close contact with all individuals involved. We often spent our nights an weekends in Perth Ámboy, NJ, where the Rev. Kinda had his pastorate. Many hundreds of hymn books had to be reviewed in order to find the matching hymn that we were looking for. The work took almost five years before we were ready for publication. Copyrights had to be obtained, like musical printing had to be found and of course proper translations had to be obtained from various sources. This all took time and effort on everyones part. Now as I look back upont those days, I more fully realize that God did the leading for us to complete the task which the Convention had entrusted to us. We have enjoyed the use of the American Hungarian Hymnal for more than forty years. It has been a blessing to thousands of people. It filled a definite purpose for our churches at that time. Today, the constituancy of our Hungarian Baptist Union has changed radically. This we have to accept and make provisions for the present and future generations of our churches. I know that many of our churches now use the hymnals of their former homeland. This is acceptable and as it should be since this adds to the service of praise within these churches. We know also that our American Hungarian Hymnal contains hymn translations that may not be gramatically perfect. This too is understandable since our present day hymns have their origins in many foreign languages and therefore much could be lost in subsequent translations. We are however creatures of habit and after we have learned the words of a hymn, we hesitate in changing the words even if the grammar is not quite correct. The Hungarian language is very picturesque, it is beautiful. In spite of its obvious gramatical errors however, how much more beautifully could they have written: Hol már felhő nem tornyosul S nem kísért e világ, Mily szép lakásom lesz ott túl, Lelkem csak oda vágy! Kar: Egy kedves hon, lesz otthonom! Mely ’t az Űr készített! Míg Isten szeretete tart, E hely’t magadnak valid! In the post war days, our Convention leadership felt it necessary to satisfy the needs of all of its people. This meant both the young and the old. They did so with the publication of a hymnal that would satisfy
