Fraternity-Testvériség, 1961 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1961-08-01 / 8. szám
16 FRATERNITY message to all congregations, in which there was set forth an account of what had transpired at Vienna, and ending with the words, “under no consideration whatsoever is the Patent to be read from the pulpit.” Next, the Church Districts issued instructions to congregations not to implement the Patent in their church life; and any minister who disobeyed such instructions was to be suspended from office. The effect of Révész’s letter was virtually complete. The authorities found that they just could not make any contact with the ministers anywhere, either through the postman, or the policeman, or by special messenger, or through the county clerk, or the sheriff-substitute. There was one area that never received Révész’s letter; with the exception of it, every minister in Hungary, some 1500 in all, resolutely refused to read the Patent from his pulpit. Police measures resulted, and many a minister wras arrested. The government deliberately issued false propaganda to mislead foreign Protestant Powers, making out that the Patent had nothing to do with religious freedom, and that the Reformed Church leaders were being accused only of being disturbers of the political peace. But Révész had his account of affairs ready almost at once. He had it translated into English with the result that certain of the Hungarian Protestant nobility sent it to the British Queen, and when others wrote the matter up in French and German, their documents were sent to the King of Prussia and other Protestant rulers. Church papers in Germany, Switzerland and Britain soon were writing up the Hungarian situation sympathetically, and protests were being made at church meetings against the activities of the Austrian government. But the result in Hungary was only the redoubling of the police action, and during February and March, ministers, and even bishops, were constantly being imprisoned. Church meetings, too, were again and again broken up by the police, though in some instances they managed
