Magyar Egyház, 1989 (63. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1989-01-01 / 1. szám
10. oldal MAGYAR EGYHÁZ “We in Hungary do not consider the churches in Romania responsible for what is going on there. We want to preserve our relations with the churches of Romania as the fellowship of the members of the same family even if they have a concept different from ours concerning the rights of minorities in Romania;” “But we are anxious to see that the WCC in view of the difficult and sensitive problems of the infringement on human rights, particularly those concerning ethnic minorities, be not remain silent;” “If we kept silent it would be a blatant contradiction to all to what we continually commit ourselves in the ecumenical movement.” Bishop Tóth concluded his statement by saying; “I am also referring to what we agreed upon as the purpose of the conciliar process of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, namely that we should identify the threats to life and resist the forces endangering life wherever we live.” “Can the World Council of Churches keep silent about what is happening in Romania?” + In a further expression of Hungarian church concern about ‘the danger of genocide’ against ethnic minorities in Romania, the Ecumenical Council of Churches in Hungary has written to Lord Henry Plumb, president of the 12- nation European Parliament. The letter was signed by Reformed Presiding Bishop Dr. Károly Tóth, president of the Hungarian Ecumenical Council which includes Reformed, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Free Church and Eastern Orthodox membership. Neither Hungary nor Romania belongs to the European Parliament. The letter points to the crude methods of assimilation which are being employed to Romanianize some two million Hungarians, 300,000 German-speaking Saxons and scores of other smaller minorities in the Transylvanian part of Romania. The letter refers to a Romanian government plan to destroy 7,000 villages and replace them with ‘agro-industrial complexes’ which is going to increase the tension that already existed because of the multiple infringement of human rights in Romania. It will “drive to ultimate despair and suicide those who, despite their desperate situation, have so far not abandoned the land of their ancestors, their houses, or their churches, together with the cultural treasures of the centuries.” “Fear, a sense of having been cheated, and torment is reflected in the eyes of those, who, having escaped from this situation, often with half their family left behind, arrive” in Hungary as refugees asking the churches for help. The letter calls this “cursed” and “painful” situation something “foreign to European thought and basic human ethics” which “poisons the political atmosphere of the whole continent, and embitters the lives of millions.” The letter concludes with a plea to condemn the danger of genocide in Romania. Ar Hungarian and Romanian delegates clashed at the 19 October meeting of the Christian Peace Conference at Görlitz, East Germany over the issue of violations of the rights of national minorities in Romania. The Rev. Tamás Bertalan, head of the foreign department of the Synodal Office of the Reformed Church of Hungary drew attention to the plight of thousands of refugees from Romania who sought refugee status because of ethnic persecution in Transylvania. The head of the Romanian delegation to the Conference, Metropolitan Nestor opposed discussion of this issue, saying that the subject was the responsibility of Hungarian and Romanian statesmen and not of the Christian Church Conference. Metropolitan Nestor’s objection was not accepted and the Conference passed a resolution opposing restrictions of the use of the mother tongue of national minorities and the Romanian government’s plans to demolish half the country’s 13,000 villages. (The above report was compiled by A. Harsanyi from press releases from Keston News Service, Ecumenical Press Service, Geneva, Hungarian Church Press, Budapest and Reformed Press Service, Geneva.) Editor’s note: do not mix up Emilio Castro, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches with the Cuban Fidel Castro. Emilio Castro is a Methodist minister from Uruguay. THE FLIGHT OF THE GERMAN LUTHERAN MINORITY IN TRANSYLVANIA Compared to the number of Hungarian Reformed people in Transylvania and its adjacent counties now under Romanian rule the Transylvanian Saxons are a small minority. These people, invited by the king of Hungary in the 12th century, settled in Southeastern Transylvania. They gained various royal privileges and were through the centuries an integral part of Transylvanian cultural and political life. Ethnically they were Moselfranks, but all mountain people from the various German provinces living in Eastern Europe were generally called “Saxons.” In the course of the Reformation in the 16th century all Transylvanian Saxons turned Lutheran. In 1940 they numbered about 250,000. By forced emigration in the course of World War II, followed by forced internal resettlement by the Romanian government and emigration to Western Germany during recent years reduced their number into the present 115,000. The Lutheran Bishop Albert Klein of Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt in German, Sibiu in Romanian) bitterly complained about the efforts of the West German government to increase the emigration of the Transylvanian Saxon community. He said that if mass emigration continues the churches would gradually “cease to be viable.” The 77 year old bishop is in favor of the Saxons remaining in Transylvania. Deplorable is also that many of the pastors are leaving. In 1987 sixteen left and in 1988 26 have applied for exit permits leaving only 89 to stay. WAVERING ECUMENICAL SPIRIT The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland said passages in the Bible referring to the anti- Christ are not necessarily to be understood as referring to the pope in particular. A draft of a handbook outlining areas of agreement and disagreement between Irish Presbyterian and Roman Catholics will be studied for a year and returned to next year’s assembly. (EPS) +
