Magyar Egyház, 1959 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1959-01-01 / 1. szám
12 MAGYAR EGYHÁZ WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES PLANS Observance of Refugee Year in 1959 The Rev. Elfan Rees of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs and an international authority on refugee affairs addressed 170 “Friends of the World Council of Churches” at the annual luncheon meeting at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York City, December 9. In his address on “Who is Responsible for Refugees?”, Dr. Rees asserted that “the original and the ultimate responsibility for the creation of the refugee problem lies with governments and their actions in the international community. It was governments who decreed the partition of Korea, Viet Nam, India, and Germany and thereby created the largest segments of the world’s refugee problems. It was governments at Potsdam who decreed the expulsions from Eastern Europe.” “Tracing the historical causes of this tragedy to government action or inaction does not, however, relieve Christians of their responsibility for its victims,” he said. “There is laid upon the churches a concern for refugees which must be an abiding element in our ministry for as far ahead as we can see.” Summarizing the present refugee situation, Dr. Rees pointed out that “In November three important and encouraging decisions were taken which give some hope. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Pere Pire for his work among refugees. A notable recognition that solving the problem of refugees is an essential contribution to peace. The United Nations reappointed the High Commissioner for Refugees for five more years, A belated recognition that this is a longterm problem to which there are no quick and easy remedies. Most encouraging of all, the United Nations decided to declare a World Refugee Year in 1959 and gave hopes that both governments and ‘we, the people’ will remember again the forgotten people.” “We cannot solve the refugee problem in a Refugee Year,” Dr. Rees said, “but given real concern we can solve the problems of many more refugees than we do in the average year of indifference.” Referring to the tenth anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, he said it was precisely the freedoms promised there that the refugee is seeking — “the promise or hope of freedom from fear, freedom to bring up children in the faith of their fathers, freedom to be yourself.” “Nobody knows today just how many refugees there are in the world, but we do know that no less than forty million people have lost their homes in the last ten years.” He spoke of the 25 million who have been made homeless in Asia including nine million in Korea, 800,000 in Viet Nam, 700,000 Chinese refugees “on the streets of Hong Kong,” and 13 million in India and Pakistan living “in the railway stations of India” and “the ditches of Pakistan.” The number of Arab refugees now exceeds one million, he said. Every year there are 25,000 children born “into these cesspools of hate” that Arab refugee camps have become. Some 250,000 Arab refugee children have been bom in the past decade. “In Europe not less than fifteen million have lost their homes and all that goes with them in the last ten years,” Dr. Rees said. Of these refugees, several millions have been resettled “but millions are left about whom something is yet to be done.” Speaking of current refugee problems, Dr. Rees said that 200,000 refugees from Algeria have come into Morocco and Tunisia in recent months. The average number of refugees who cross the border from East into West Germany nightly is 700. “Because it is easier to become a refugee in fine weather” and this has been a mild autumn in Europe, the figure for crossings in November shot up to 29,000, “practically a thousand a night.” “The difference in the Bethlehem of today and the Bethlehem of the nativity is that there is no room in the stable,” Dr. Rees said in a plea for Christian responsibility for the refugees. The World Council is one of the pricipal voluntary agencies in the field of refugee work. Churches working through the Council have resettled more than 200,000 refugees in thee first decade of the Council’s existence, among them a great number of Hungarian Reformed refugees. Dean Gábor Csordás and Dr. Andrew Harsányi were among those who attended this meeting. Ministers' Telegram to the President On January 12 Hungarian Reformed ministers — belonging to different denominations — sent the following telegram to the President of the United States of America: “Dear Mr. President: We, the undersigned, are leaders of the Hungarian Reformed community of New York and vicinity. As ministers of the Gospel we approve of the counsel given by you that our freedom should be manifest in courtesy. We are unhappy over the discourteous acts of some demonstrators even though we understand the spirit of bitterness and frustration that has prompted them. We will try to use our Influence that such discourtesies be not repeated. In addition, however, we ask you and the officials of the government of the United States that in your conversations with Anastas Mikoyan the Hungarian problem be brought up and efforts be made towards a satisfactory solution.” The telegram was signed by the following ministers: Rev. Dezső Ábrahám, Perth Amboy, N. J. Rev. Alexander Babos, Fairfield, Conn. Rev. Imre Bertalan, Passaic, N. J. Rev. Gábor Csordás, New York City Rev. Andrew Hamza, New York City Rev. Andrew Harsányi, Carteret, N. J. Rev. Andrew Hartó, South Norwalk, Conn. Rev. Imre Kovács, New York City Rev. Zsigmond Ladányi, New York City Rev. Béla Szigethy, Wharton, N. J. The text of the telegram was also given to the New York Times.
