Magyar Egyház, 1957 (36. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1957-06-01 / 6-7. szám

14

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

THE SMALL REFORMED CONGREGATION at Baracska near Budapest has started a campaign to rebuild its war-damaged church. The tiles for the roof of the new church are already available, but have been “lent” to another parish until the church is ready for the roof to be put on. In the first five weeks of the campaign, members collected 18,000 forints toward a goal of 100,000 forints, but it will probably take five or six years to get the church. During the last few years the congregation built a parish room out of the ruins of the old parish house and restored the belfry.

FROM AN EDITORIAL published in “The Reformed and Presbyterian World”, official organ of The Alliance of the Reformed Churches Throughout the World Holding the Presbyterian Order:

“Not only Europe, but the whole world has been deeply moved by recent events in Hungary. As belonging to the Reformed family of Churches we are touched very nearly by these events. For in Hungary there is a large Reformed Church, with a membership of about two millions, which has always taken an active part in the affairs of the World Presbyterian Alliance, and which — still more important — has kept alive the reformed witness in this part of Europe throughout the centuries.

Because the Reformed and Presbyterian Churches have no confessionally organized inter-church aid, and because in consequence their help has been given almost entirely through nondenominational channels, a great many people have thought that the Reformed Churches have been doing very little in the present crisis. In fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Since December, 1956, HEKS, the organization for inter-church aid of the Swiss Reformed Churches, has sent hundreds of parcels of food and clothing to the families of Hungarian pastors. At the beginning of January a representative of HEKS went to Budapest for meetings with reformed leaders, and brought back to Switzerland concrete proposals for helping the Protestant Churches in Hungary. This plan has been transmitted by us to the World Council’s Division of Interchurch Aid, which is now arranging to implement it.

Throughout the world, Churches of the Reformed family have collected considerable of money for the Reformed Church of Hungary. One example is that of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland which, from a communicant membership of 130,000, raised more than £20,000 ($56,000) for the Hungarian Reformed Church.”

ACCORDIND TO FIGURES published in the same editorial at present there are approximately 2,000,000 people of the Reformed Faith in Hungary, 800,000 in Roumania, 500,000 in Czecho-Slovakia, 70,000 in the Carpathian-Ukraine. To these we may add some 35,000 in Yugoslavia. This makes up a total of almost three and a half million people. Those who know the tragic political history of Central Europe will also know that with the exception of only a very few all these people are Hungarians regardless of the political boundaries they are living in today.

The secretariat of the provisional Council of European Churches formed at Liselund, Denmark, will be in the Netherlands. A provisional working committee includes Pastor Paul Conord (Paris), Dr. H. Hildebrandt (Berlin), Dr. Heinz Kloppenburg (Dortmund), Bishop Zygmunt Michelis (Warsaw), Pastor Gyula Muraközy (Budapest), Dr. Ernst Wilm (Bielefeld), Pastor A. Ribet (Milan) and Professor Josef B. Soucek (Prague). Representatives from Switzerland and from a “free church” are to be appointed. Dr. Heinrich Held of the Rhineland, Dr. Egbert Emmen of The Hague and Archbishop Kiivit of Esthonia form a provisional executive.

(E.P.S.)

Dr. Gerhard May, Bishop of the Evangelical Church in Austria, and Bishop Stefan László, Apostolic Legate to the Hungarian refugees in Austria, have sent a .joint request to the U.S. State Department, urging the U.S.A. to continue to grant right of entry to Hungarian refugees in Austria.

Teens Pose New Problems in Austrian Camps

“Imagine 2,000 teen-agers confined to limited quarters with nothing to do and you have an idea of a major problem facing refugee workers,” a leading church woman declared on her recent return from Austria.

Reporting on a survey she made of conditions in refugee camps for Hungarians near Vienna, Mrs. Ella P. Harllee said that these young people are not going to school and cannot be employed in Austria. If they are under 18, she said, they cannot emigrate without their parents’ consent and it is usually impossible to communicate with parents they left behind.

“In most of them the spirit of revolution still glows,” she said, “and many who took part in the actual fighting are going to be hard to rehabilitate.” Mrs. Harllee said she heartily agreed with a statement by one Austrian social worker who said: “In Hungary these young people who fought in the revolt were heroes but now, in their shabby, borrowed clothes, they are treated like juvenile delinquents.”

Mrs. Harllee, who is chairman of the public relations committee of United Church Women, emphasized: “The Hungarian refugee problem as a whole is definitely not finished. With refugees not knowing where to turn, the situation is still critical.”

Reporting on a visit to one camp she said: “Seventy people were crowded into temporary living quarters in what had been a church. It was a pathetic sight. They were nervous and bitter. With trembling hands and anxious eyes, they asked me if America was going to help them. They simply don’t understand the delay,” Mrs. Harllee concluded, “and if they are left there until winter there will be still more serious problems.”

Mrs. Harllee also reported that through an emergency fund set up by United Church Women, $6,000 was sent to Austria to aid the Hungarian refugees. United Church Women is a general department of the National Council of Churches. (R.N.W.)