Magyar Egyház, 1955 (34. évfolyam, 1-10. szám)
1955-09-01 / 9. szám
12 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ REMEMBER YOUR HERITAGE by the Rev. Charles Darocy The Free Magyar Reformed Church occupies an unique position in modern American Protestantism. It is the only Reformed denomination that has maintained its liturgical treasures intact. Therefore it has something to offer other Protestants, something that is unique and distinctive. Liturgies is the science of worship. The Calvinistic Reformation placed tremendous emphasis upon the place of the public worship of God in the life of the individual believer. According to this ideal the worship of the congregation must emphasise the Biblical basis of faith and the corporate nature of Christian fellowship. Never is the congregation to merely watch a service, it is always to participate, to share in the community of worship. The Communion Service that was developed in Geneva by the Reformers has been maintained intact through more than four centuries by the parent Church in Hungary. There, amid persecution and poverty, the Hungarian Reformed Church realized that its strength could only be found in the worship of its peolpe. And it was precisely in the way that Communion was administered that this Church gave its great witness of faith to the entire world. The Communion Service was never thought of apart from the entire life of the Church. As a high point in Christian fellowship it demanded adequate spiritual preparation on the part of pastor and people. As the service progressed all became aware of the fact that they were sharing in the great act of redemption. The officiating minister first read the part of the service in which the congregation and he confessed before God their own sinfulness and inadequacy. Then the promise of God, that through the reception of the Sacred Elements all would be partakers of Christ, was gladly received. “This is my body, broken for you.” The pastor passes from one communicant to another, actually breaking the sacramental bread. All share, not in some spiritual manner alone, but in the visible act of seeing that the bread in which they are united to God is broken before their eyes. “This cup is the New Covenant, drink ye all of it.” Not these little pretty glasses, but THIS CUP! Apparently folks who fear bacterial infection from sharing a Common Cup have never heard of airborne viruses. All the communicants once again unite as they receive from the hands of the pastor the Cup, the sign and seal of the New Covenant in Christ. The Reformers, who sought a return to the services of the earliest Christian communities, used exactly this form of Communion. Under the influence of indifferent and often hostile denominations, most of the Reformed Churches dropped the ancient form and tried to be up to date. In doing this they forgot that the Church that doesn’t care for tradition usually isn’t too serious in its overall work in behalf of the Kingdom For Reformation, remember your heritage. While other denominations of the Reformed faith are today eager to return to all that was good and important in the past, never forget that what they seek YOU ALREADY HAVE. Never forget that. And remember that at a time when a new appreciation of our Reformation heritage is sweeping our land, you are the heirs of a Liturgy that has maintained the original form developed by the Reformers. THE CHURCH AND WOMEN . . . NEW YORK, N. Y. — No one knows what woman v/as so daring as to first propose a “female society.” History records that male hostility to such boldness was met even in the early 19th century wnen a crinolined church woman first felt the urge to leave her sheltering hearthside long enough to help her fellowmen. “There’s no telling what these misguided females would pray for,” stern preachers shouted, demanding that an elder or deacon be present when women in “mite” or “missionary” societies met to pray together. The atomic-age descendants of these “misguided females,” as they meet in the National Assembly of United Church Women in Cleveland, Ohio, November 7-10, 1955, hope to vindicate the faith held so stubbornly by their gentle but firm grandmothers in the days of the petticoat revolution. Only briefly, on the eve of this great national gathering, will United Church Women, representing 10 million Protestant and Orthodox women, pause to take stock of their history and their accomplishments. Chiefly their faces will be turned forward to the gigantic tasks ahead, seeking to chart the paths by which their cooperative efforts can make their communities and their world more truly Christian. To counsel with them more than 30 women from overseas will be with them, to make this a truly ecumenical gathering. Their way sometimes seemed peppered with difficulties. “What is this crazy idea?” shouted elders of Old Presbyterian Church in Gilbertsville when a women started the first Female Missionary Society in the state of New York in 1817. “This must be stopped at once, If it is allowed to go on, women will be completely unsexed and may even get the notion of having money of their own!” Actually, as early as 1793 Quaker women had formed “the Female Society for the Employment of the Poor.” In 1800 Congregational and Baptist women organized the “Female Society for Missionary Purposes.” The following year another group called themselves the “Female Society for Promoting the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge.” The women of other denominations, among them the Dutch Reformed and Methodist, began organizing fer similar purposes. The movement gained impetus from the dramatic news that a missionary named Cary had made his first convert in India, Dues were small; pennies were gathered in mite boxes, egg and butter money was saved and more raised at quality bees, sewing projects and by selling cakes rag rugs and the like. At first the money was scrupulously turned over to the men’s missionary societies — no mere woman made the decision as to its expenditure! Slowly the picture changed. Women began to see the need for missionaries of their own sex — especially to countries where women were sequestered and no male exhortation could reach their ears. Asia called. The land of harems needed Christian women missionaries. What matter that a missonary had to be ordained and that the churches did not ordain women! Sweeping aside male warnings that women’s place was in the home and that they “should keep silent in the churches,” a small, determined band of women met in Boston on a blustery day in ’69 and the Woman’s
