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

1950-06-01 / 10. szám

-g-Hungarian Church Press

gave thanks publicly, in Now Year messages, in mission circulars or in newspapers, to God and to the Hungarian government for the fact that a full year had elapsed without a ‘single instanco of any congregation or preacher having been hindered by the authorities in the free exorcise of religion or in the preaching of the Word. Phis actual freedom was no novelty in the larger denominations which had hardly ever known any interference in the years past, but iitr was a sensational fact in the life of the free churches which had been accustomed to such vexations. Phis part of our declaration evoked a lively echo also from abroad.

there is yet to add another significant item: what wo could never achieve before, the Hungarian Broadcasting System embodied into its programme, as a permanent feature, the fortnightly Religious Half Hour of the free churches.1

II. Changes in our Constitutional Position.

’’Received" and "Recognized" Denominations on Equal Footing...

I have just mentioned that the democratic government rehabilitated those smaller religious groups which had been outlawed by Fascism. Yet prior of this, these oppressed or outlawed minorities had boen reinstated into their rights by the city commandant of the victorious Red Army, when, at the first official reception, the Presiduum of the'Free Churches was assigned a prominent place, immediately after the Mayor of the capital and the Nunciature of the Vatican. The city commandant, who was then in the company of a Red Army general, had a hearty talk with the members of the Presiduum.

After the rehabilitation of outlawed denominations, the other noble gesture of the Hungarian government consisted in No. 250,105/1945. VI. 3. decree of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, which sanctioned the function of the free church federation,the right to issue identity cards to free church preachers and evangelists, and gave the order that all churches, prayer rooms and other church premises oi the congregations in the free church federation bo exempt from requisitions. Shortly after this,the Minister of Religious Affairs and Public Education had a special department organised, within the Protestant Department, to take charge of the matters concerning the free churches. Thus not only the Baptist church, which had boon a "recognised" church of prior standing, but the other, hitherto "not recognized" free churches also obtained their representation in the administration of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education.

Yet, there was still a constitutional survival which was to be get rid of. The law still classified the cuurches of Hungary into three groups. There wore the so-called "received" churches /re1igiones receptae/, the "recognised" churches, and those which were merely tolerated. bo were very energetic in urging and demanding, as we had alwa^ done during the previous decades, the liquidation of this absurd situation. The distinction between the "received" and the "recognised" churches, to the advantage of the former and the disadvantage cf the latter, was especially illogical, humiliating and anti-denocratio .Finally in