Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1960-08-01 / 8. szám

FRATERNITY

7

property confiscated. A mixed couple could not be married unless the Protestant partner agreed to turn. Schools were still being seized, and of those not taken over, many had been reduced in statue, while school books, Bibles, hymn books and all foreign theological literature had again been confiscated.

The Queen replied to this memorandum by saj'ing that her great desire was to be a real mother to her people no matter what their religious faith—yet she did nothing to relieve the situation of her Protestant subjects, who continued to live in their own country as if they were exiles from another land. During the reign of this same queen who uttered such motherly sentiments, 353 new Catholic parishes were, in fact, instituted, many of them actually places where Protestant ministers had been forced from their homes and parishes. On the other hand, in the same period, the Reformed Church, in the Transdanubian Church District alone, lost 150 church buildings seized on one pretext or another and given to the Roman Church.

The general reaction of the Court and of the Roman Church to the memorandum transmitted to the Queen by representatives of the Protestant Churches was that Protestants really should have no rights at all on the ground that they were apostates, and being such, were virtually in a state of rebellion against both Church and State. The}7 were thus sinners, not only theologically speaking, but also legally. Or, to quote another spokesman of the period, Marton Biró, who produced a book denouncing the heretics, Protestants were like sparrows—lively, importunate, forever twittering, and given to sensuality ! He summed up their position in the words: “He who does not adore the Virgin Mary cannot be a good Hungarian.”

The Protestants in their turn were not allowed to make literary reply to written attacks by Church or State sucli as this of Biró, although the Roman Catholic Church made sure that Biro’s