Magyar Egyház, 1972 (51. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1972-06-01 / 6-7. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 13 The American Hungarian Reformed Ministerial Association will hold its annual fall meeting on the 4th, (evening) — 5th and 6th (half day) of September 1972, in Ligonier, Pa., in the Bethlen Home. A detailed program will be published in the next issue. Rev. Louis Illés, Vice-President United Presbyterian Church Quits Consultation On Church Union Denver, Colorado — The 184tli General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the USA on May 19 voted to withdraw from the Consultation on Church Union, a body which a previous General Assembly had been instrumental in creating ten years ago. The vote, 411 to 310, came after a long debate and impassioned pleas for and against the proposal. The recommendation “to discontinue participation in COCU while continuing ecumenical conversations, and seeking effective joint ministries” was brought before the Assembly by the standing committee on Bills and Overtures. The standing committee proposal was presented by Mr. Harry L. Schroeder of Indianapolis, who said the action “has as its goal the advancement of the church on every ecumenical front. We are convinced that the Consultation on Church Union is no longer such a front.” He said the Consultation has stirred distrust “within our denomination and others,” and that withdrawal would leave the church “free to become the one family the church is called to be.” It would, he declared, “open a wider door” to talks with such groups as Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Pentecostals, and others; that nothing on local ecumenical levels would be impaired; and that the Consultation implies a hope of church union that is at this time false. Moderator C. Willard Heckel asked the Assembly to delay debate on the withdrawal proposal until after it had heard from a Special Committee on the Consultation on Church Union, hut the delegates would not he deterred. The ancestry of the Consultation is popularly traced to a sermon delivered in 1960 by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, then stated clerk of the General Assembly, in which he proposed that United Presbyterians and the Protestant Episcopal Church, along with the Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, and any others willing to do so, seek a united church “truly catholic, truly evangelical, and truly reformed.” The General Assembly in 1961 took action to implement that proposal, and the denomination has been thoroughly involved in COCU to this time. Dr. W illiam P. Thompson, present stated clerk of the General Assembly, was a member of the commission that wrote the COCU plan of union. The withdrawal of the United Presbyterian Church reduces the number of denominations in the Consultation to eight. 1972 Confirmation Class, Allen Park, Mich. Charles A. Darocy, Pastor.
