Hungarian Church Press, 1950 (2. évfolyam, 4-13. szám)

1950-03-01 / 4. szám

-2-Hungarian Church Press

to the instructions of the donors, this help was distributed among the Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Greek Orthodox, Unitarian Churches and the Salvation Army. The Committee expressed the deep gratitude of the constituent church bodies to those Christian brethren abroad who took part in collecting and sending this aid to the Hungarian Churches. At the same time, the Committee fully realized that this aid, which was originally intended to alleviate the ill3 caused by the war, will gradually cease.

THE MASSAGE OP THE LUTHEHaH CHURCH OP HUNG*. KT TO THE LUTHERAN PEOPLE IN THE WEST

The following message has been sent by the Leaders of the Lutheran Church of Hungary to their Lutheran Brethren in the

West.

Dear Friends,

1. / It is after a decision by faith and trusting in faith, that is, in God alone that the Hungarian Lutheran Church has taken the v/ay and endeavours to walk it which it considers as a narrow path in the present world, according to the will of God.

It knows and confesses that the Church shall remain for ever, according to the promise of God /Matt.16:18/, but it also knows that God in some times and places judges the Church or parts of it. For this reason we are responsible before God that His Church might subsist in Hungary and now as a congregation in the sense of the New Testament, and perform its task as defined in the apostles’ commission, surely under no more adverse circumstances as the apostles had done their tasks in the Roman Empire. We cannot.-, therefore, take the responsibility for starting a so-called Church resistance on account of the limitation of certain aspects of Church life which we have to recognize in the light of the Word

as not belonging to the nature of the Church in the sense of the New Testament.

2. / We know and confess that our Church is being judged by God on account of its omissions and disobedience, for in the decades past it was interwoven with certain social and economic systems and was unable to resist the temptations of purposeful nationalism and militarism, in a word, the perils of worldliness* But, humbled by this judgement, we also confess, learning it happily, that God has granted a respite of grace to our Church; amidst external difficulties and examinations the Holy Ghost strips off everything that has in the course of time stuck to the body of the Church in the shape of human guarantees and additions, and grants a wonderful revival and renewal wherever the Gospel

is purely preached. Never did the Word of God sp He in the Hungarian Lutheran Church so abundantly as it does now, and never was it listened to by so many people as it is is done now. Except the period of tolerance beginning at the end of the 16th century, subsequent to the persecutions of the Habsburgs, never were so many churches at one time built as are now.