Magyar Egyház, 1958 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1958-04-01 / 4. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 9 YOUTH WORKERS AMONG HUNGARIAN REFUGEES The first two young people to work with Hungarian refugees in Austria during 1958 under a new ecumenical voluntary service project have been named by the World Council of Churches. They are Helen Paty Eiffe from Elizabeth, N.J., and William Gillard from Pardale, Australia. The two young people are the first of twenty to be appointed to refugee centers, homes for teen age boys and girls, construction projects and field offices. Working on a volunteer basis, the youths will pay their own travel expenses and receive only their room and board while serving the project. Miss Eiffe will begin work with the World Council of Churches on August 15. For the past 18 months she has been in Bethlehem, Pa., working as assistant public relations director for the five-hundredth anniversary of the Moravian Church. Mr. Gillard, son of a prominent Methodist minister in Australia and himself a candidate for the ministry, will study next year in Great Britain. He will serve in Austria from May to September. The Youth Department and the Division of Inter-Church Aid and Service to Refugees of the World Council of Churches are co-sponsors of the program. To qualify young people must be between 19 and 30 and be chosen by a national ecumenical youth committee. In the U.S., the Ecumenical Voluntary Service Committee of the National Council of Churches, 257 Fourth Avenue, New York, screens applicants. The period of service ranges from one month to one year and applicants “must have a willingness to share the life of the refugees and the imagination and energy to find ways of helping, particularly when there is no specific hour-byhour definition of their work.” The program was carried out on an experimental basis last year when 40 youths worked with Hungarian refugees in Austria. Now an ecumenical youth service committee has been set up in Geneva, Switzerland to supervise such projects as well as the short-term work camps. FILES ON COLOMBIA PERSECUTION OPENED TO PRESS (Chicago)—The National Association of Evangelicals has asked three newspaper groups to inspect its files of “over 700 documented cases of persecution” of Protentants in Colombia. The invitation, issued by the council’s board of administration, was made “to counteract a protest” by the Rev. John E. Kelly of the National Catholic Welfare Conference that newspaper reports of persecution in Colombia were inaccurate and “one-sided”. Father Kelly made his protest last October in messages to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the American Newspaper Publishers Association and Sigma Delta Chi, journalistic university and college fraternity. The NAE reported that the “overwhelming” number of the 700 cases of persecution “were either personally or indirectly led by Roman Catholics” E.P.S., Geneva AUSTRIAN PARLIAMENT HEARS PROTESTANT CASE (Vienna)—A Protestant deputy of the Austrian People’s Party, Dr. H. Geissler, has addressed the Austrian parliament on equal rights for Protestants under a proposed new law regulating church-state relationships. Dr. Geissler said the state must give Protestants the same rights as Catholics receive under any concordat with the Vatican. Negotiations are now proceeding to try to establish a revised concordat between Austria and the Vatican. Claims made by the Protestant deputy included the rights of Protestants to cooperate freely with their sister-churches abroad, to appoint their own officials and to share in appointments at state university theological faculties. The speaker outlined the general principle that the Protestant Church should not be bound by the state nor completely isolated from the state. The debate was the fullest to be held on the Protestant question in the Austrian parliament since 1848. There are about 400,000 Protestants in Austria and over 6,000,000 Roman Catholic. (E.P.S., Geneva' PROTESTANT PAVILION AT THE BRUSSELS — WORLD’S FAIR — A service of dedication in Dutch, French, English and German was held at the Protestant Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair on Sunday, April 20. This ecumenical Pavilion was initiated by Belgian Protestants. The glass and aluminum structure is located near the giant atomium which is the symbol of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. Leaders of the U.S. Section of the International Christian Committee helping to raise money for the Pavilion have announced that the half-way mark has been reached in their campaign to raise $100,000 in this country. “Through the contributions of national church bodies, individuals, and congregations, we have been able to help Belgians in this world-wide witness,” says Mr. Charles C. Pariin, co-chairman of the U.S. Committee. “We have $50,000, and we hope to raise the remainder before the Fair closes in October,” the New York lawyer and prominent Methodist layman stresses. Gifts have come from Churches as well as from many individuals including college students, retired bishops, church women, Air Force personnel, and others. A Protestant Witness Roll is being compiled in Washington, D. C., home of Pavilion co-chairman Mrs. T.O. Wedel, national president of the United Church Women. The Protestant Witness Roll contains the names of all donors of $5 or more to the Pavilion. It will be placed inside the Pavilion and names will be added as contributions are received during the Fair. * Contributions toward this Pavilion can be sent and will be forwarded by the office of the Editor of Magyar Egyház, too.
