Magyar Egyház, 1994 (73. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
1994 / 1. szám
MAGYAREGYHÁZ 7. oldal PENTECOST MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENTS OF THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES This is the text of the 1994 Pentecost message from the presidents of the World Council of Churches. The presidents of the WCC are Anna Marie Aagaard (Denmark), Vinton Anderson (USA), Leslie Boseto (Solomon Islands), Priyanka Mendis (Sri Lanka), Parthenios of Alexandria (Egypt), Eunice Santana (Puerto Rico), Shenouda of Alexandria (Egypt), and Aaron Tolen (Cameroon). “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”. In the afterglow of Easter, we are renewed in our confidence in the eternal love of God through the death and resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ. With St. Paul we too have longed to know the “fellowship of his sufferings” so that we may share in “the power of his resurrection” (Phil. 3.10). Galvanized by the miracle of the resurrection, we are born anew in our faith and go forward to live with undaunted hope. We are now called to proclaim the Good News and to “spread the honors of Jesus’ name”. At Christmas we celebrated the coming of our Sovereign God to be with us; at Easter we rejoiced in the hope of glory promised in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ; now at Pentecost we celebrate the coming of God the Holy Spirit to abide in us. It is significant that the descent of the Spirit at the first Pentecost happened when “they were all of one accord in one place” (Acts 2.1). Even today, in order to be open to the life-giving descent of the spirit, we need to be in prayer with one accord for the healing of our tormented world, offering to it a visible sign as Christians of the unity God intends for all. This year has been designated as the Year of the Family. It is good to reflect on the family during the season of Pentecost, for family has to do with relationships. The Spirit, the scripture says, is the One who binds us into a relationship of love with God and one another. Can it be, we ask ourselves at this Pentecost, that we have failed to witness to God’s intention that we live in concord with one another, weave patterns of caring love and propagate values that nurture the family in the midst of society? Over the past 30 years there has been a clarion call to “save the family”. The two world wars and the resultant industrial developments have so impacted our traditional roles in so many of our societies that family, as we have known it, has become a threatened entity. Now, in 1994, the family is still threatened by changing values, economic pressures and undefined lifestyles. The concept of the family today is changing, but it remains necessary because human beings are not made to be alone. It is important, then, that churches also focus on the family in this International Year of the Family. We must not miss the opportunity to make our contribution to the search for the model and meaning of the family in our times. We are called not only to stress the significance of the family as that which sustains, nurtures and supports units in society, but we also need to discover and hold up its biblical foundation and the role and meaning it has for our time. Let us then be vigilant and courageous as members of the body of Christ as we rebuild our faith in the family in the context of the search for a new world order. And may the Spirit of unity that fell on the gathered community also fall on us and build us into a community of faith. “In union with him,” writes St. Paul, “you too are being built together with all others into a place where God lives through his Spirit” (Eph. 2.22). “The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the Communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all”. (EPS) PROFILE OF THE REFORMED CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN CROATIA The Reformed Christian Church in Croatia came into being after Croatia had gained international recognition and independence. As a result, congregations in this new country had to be separated from the rest of the Reformed Christian Church in rump-Yugoslavia, administered by the bishop in Feketics (Imre Hodosy). This new Reformed Church in Croatia was legally organized at the Synod in Osijek on January 30th, 1993. The Reformed Christian Church in Croatia, as an autonomous Church, is very young. All the congregations, however, just as those in the rump- Yugoslavia are part of pre-World War I. Hungary and are more than a thousand-year old Hungarian settlements and Reformed since the Reformation. By the grace of God these settlements of the Reformed Christian Church in Croatia survived the bloody Counter-Reformation and the Ottoman occupation. They trust they will survive the present Serbo-Communist aggression and ethnic cleansing as well. The total membership of the congregation of the RCCC before the war was 4,375. Now 2,907 are refugees - 1,075 are in Hungary in 46 different places and 1,832 on the free territory in Croatia, mostly in and around Osijek and Vinkovci, in 28
