Fraternity-Testvériség, 1957 (35. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1957-05-01 / 5. szám

16

FRATERNITY

A UNIQUE CONGREGATION

In a physical as well as a spiritual sense, my daily bread is the Hungarian Reformed Church life. I dedicated myself to its service a good many years ago and death alone will dissolve the bond.

It is my firm conviction that the inherent values of our heritage as a people will only be perpetuated under the hall mark of our Reformed faith. Shall we use argument? Today, about a million and a

half Magyars live outside the borders of historic Hungary. They live, did we say? No. Most of them merely stagnate. Those of them alone live who boarded the storm proven boat of Christ’s Church. At this moment we keep one hundred seventy congregations on record in Europe, North and South America, and Australia. Not many, you say. Indeed, there could be many more for there are three hundred thousand of us, according to the figures of vital statistics; actually, however, not more than about seventy-five thousand of us profess our Reformed Christian religion. Still there is no unity even in this small group. It is not

only that we are divided by boundary lines but, in some countries, by denominational barriers as well. Yet, in spite of this fragmentation and smallness of number, Reformed Christians are the keepers and propagators of the values of our racial heritage. For proof, we point to the one hundred twenty-five church edifices dotting the map of the world from Paris to Sidney and from Calgary as far as Buenos Aires. These churches are our “ebenezer”, the pillars of stone of a very present divine help.

Although it is but a pious desire, still we cannot help wondering what great achievements we could have accomplished had we remained one body.

Let us point to no more than two examples. The first one is the

Hungarian Reformed Federation of America, this marvelous product of

our business ability permeated by wholesome, Reformed Christian principles. Just because within the framework of the Federation we have been willing to bury our differences and have gladly assumed the privilege and responsibility of mutual aid, during the span of six decades we grew into a strong institution with assets of more than eight million dollars.

The Reformed Federation is eloquent proof of the strength and power innate in accord and cooperation; simultaneously, it underlines a wholesome, Reformed Christian principle: we are keepers not only of the “soul” but of the “body” of our brother as well. We are responsible for our fellow-man as he is, soul and body together. This is why I cannot accept the reasoning popping up once in a while that a minister cannot be engaged in “business”. In what kind of a business, I ask? In the business of recommending our own insurance organization to our own people? In the business of making the erection of new church edifices and the perpetuation of existing congregations possible by the financial assistance of the Federation? In the business of providing food, clothing and medicine to our destitute people beyond the seas through