Fraternity-Testvériség, 1959 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1959-12-01 / 12. szám
FRATERNITY 17 had already appeared in the Romanian tongue. The Romanian Reformed Church bishop, Stephen Simon, now brought out (1648) a new translation of the New Testament, and then translated the catechism and other Christian literature into the Romanian language. It is a sorry thing to have to relate that in later years, when Transylvania came under the rule of the Habsburgs, the latter so encouraged the work of various Roman Catholic orders that the whole of the Romanian-speaking Reformed Church disappeared, and at the same time, part of the Romanian Orthodox Church actually united with Rome. Yet, the fruits of the preaching of the Reformed Church became visible later in another form. A truly Romanian national literature was born of this reforming and biblical movement before its religious impetus was arrested by the Church of Rome, which has continued to flower right up to the present day. Church Government: The First Kirk Sessions At the beginning of the 17th century the Reformed Church was composed of two Church Districts, as they are called in Hungary, or Dioceses. The year 1591 saw the separation of the Reformed Church from the Lutheran in the area west of the Danube, but it was only in 1612 that a constitution for that Church was brought into being. In the northwestern part of Hungary the majority of Protestants decided for Calvinism as early as 1592, yet the remaining Lutherans stayed on with them, as part of the one church organization. The two confessions even agreed that their clergy might dispense the Sacraments the one for the other. Unfortunately, we do not know how general this unusual agreement was. Yet we may say confidently that the Reformed Church had constitutionally come into being in this area before the end of the 16th century. The Counter-Reformation had by now brought it about that the city fathers in the towns or individual patrons in the country no longer had control of congregations and their life, for the
