Hungarian Church Press, 1957 (9. évfolyam, 14-15. szám)

1957-11-30 / 14. szám

- 17 -173

IIGHP XI. 30,1957, Vol. 32/14

present practice of re-electing all the other church functionaries to the offices of the bishop and the general curator. On my part I already regard the threeyear period of office sis an absolutely binding law, and, if by God's decree, I were to assure the office of the bishop, I would abide by it.

May the grace

of God be with us.

.Budapest,, the 2nd of May, 1948.

With sincere love

Your friend, Albert Bercczby".

Both letters - with the permission of both of us - were sent in a circular by the late János Victor of blessed memory to the congregations. The decision of the consistories of the congregations was as follows:

The number of votes cast was 633.

I received 340 votes.

The rest of the votes dispersed.

I was constrained to write down these and yet other things, necessary for our information, in a message sent from the hospital, already on the 16th of December, 1956, to the Presidential Council of the General Synod. At the end of December I had this memorandum mimeographed with the intention of sending it with a circular to all pastors of the Danubian Church District for their information. Then, on the second thought, I retained the circulars which were ready for the post. I feared that, instead of promoting calm understanding, ny memorandum would fourth er intensify excitement and tensions. (All ministerial and lay office-bearers of the Danubian Church Distriot, who are interested in this memorandum may obtain it from the Bishop's Office),

If this matter concerned only my person, it would be my obvious duty to keep silent about it. While I was writing this secticn of my report the most difficult part for me to write I was always having in my mind what our common daily lessons fron the Bible prescribed for those days from the First Epistle of Peter, chapter 2, verse 23: "Who, wfy h he was reviled, reviled not ágiin; when he suffered, he threatened not; but .L^-v^ted himself to him that judgeth righteously"0 -And my heart is throbbing in my throat when I remember that in the se days I am reading the First Epistle of John, with its passionatly urging call on us to love one another. But, while what I must personally bear and forget with forgiving love that we cannot permit to be committed at the expense of the honour which is due to our service and offioe in the church, v7e cannot refrain from giving this strictly and irrefutably documented reply to the talk which wanted to challenge the lawfulness of the office of the bishop in the Danubian Church District and to cast doubts upon or even to deny the honesty of the service of one occupying that office, I have been particularly constrained to present this to the Assembly of the Church District especially for the untruth that the bishop who retired eightyears ago, after having said a noble and solemn farewell and having received the blessing of our synod, was still the lawful bishop - by inference, his successor was an usurper - was not only stated by that unfortunate radio broadcast and press communique, but was repeated and affirmed arid affirmed again and again, for months, at seniors' conferences and in the so-called District Council sessions. I an at a loss to comprehend how those doing this could not clearly comprehend what an inestimable damage they were causing thereby to the Reformed Church in Hungary. For