Hungarian Church Press, 1958 (10. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)

1958-01-15 / 1-2. szám

HGHP 1,15 ,-11* 1,2958, VolO/1'2 -JL5

15

facts - universal hi man facts - which had been begun generations before in the world history and betake themselves to solution all over the world, these men cast tire church victim to a 2—3 hour, nightmarish, political system, to a horribly trr. gical ephemeral, political adventure. I do not want" to pique the honest trade of a provincial cliandler by drawing a parallel between them and these men but a provincial dealer can speak on political subjects with greater expertness than Visser Hooft, László Pap, László Ravasz to the history of the Hungarian people, the world policy and the political situation of the church.

I do not say all these behind their backs. To make feel the moral quality of these events I p re dent you some illustrations, Brethren, purification in the church is a painful tiling, Ind I am speaking in this griefc

In the early days of this year (1956) I was rang up in the Institute for Cultural Relations by Marcellus Pradervand from Geneva, It is a complement to the circumst snees that in that period' seme of the Budapest pastors were arrested.

Marcellus Pradervand began speaking like that: *Uy dear John, I am very happy to hear your voiqe ’. My reply; * Dear Marcellas, you would have had opportunity to hear my toice earlier,too, for instance at the end of October and the beginning of November. ’ Then he: ’I did not know your call-number’. My answer; ’As you were able to trace the phone-number of the Institute for Cultural Relations, you could have found me easier by phone in Debrecen at the end of October and the beginning pf November. lou had had to say only that tliey should ring up János Péter in Debrecen, But will you tell me, please, what is it you are ringing me up far ?’ He said: ’I should like to call up the sense of your responsibility to intercede for those miserable people being in custody of the police’. My answer was as follows; -"Dear Marcellus, I am not inclined either to accept or listai to any calling.up the sense of iqy responsibility on your side.

In the four hundred years’ history of the Protestant churches in Hungary perhaps there has been nobody so detrimental to the church’s affair as you apd Visser ’t Hooftc I was walking for ten years to impede that events which you ask my rescue in - should never ensue, I did my utmost for those people through ten years. liven new I do all what comes from ny responsibility but I do not want to tell a word about it in common with you’. By that he began to apologize saying that he did not share Wisser ’t Ilooft’s view about the Hungarian events, he had not encouraged the László P.'p’^to do those actions they got in. To which I gave the following answer: ;I have not examined the question in any respect yet but one thing is undeniable that you had done nothing to withhold Visser ’t it oft and r ap from that horror into which they dragged the church’,

I have referred to the fact how I blame myself for having invited the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches to Hi mg; cry. That might have been turned out all right: a cliance for the church’s cannon service in a divided world0 .And these propitious potentialities were distrqyed by them.

In the course of conferring honorary doctor’s degree on the Jubilee celebration of the Budapest Theological Academy an American churchman hod preached in the XAlvin-square church.His sermon, though in a word beating about the bush, was an open propaganda of the American way of life in the framework of preaching the Word, Then I talked in privacy with Visser ’t Hooft.- I refunded him if at Evanston we had delivered speeches and lectures for the sax of die socialist way of life in the summer of 1954 or better say for making our political views reflected, the centre of the World Council of Churches would have made a scandal in