Fraternity-Testvériség, 1961 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1961-08-01 / 8. szám
FRATERNITY 17 to hold them in defiance of the presence of officials. But by now the whole Hungarian people stood behind the leaders of the Reformed Church no matter what their religious convictions might be, and wherever it was learned that a church leader was to be speaking in defiance of the law, huge crowds would gather to hear him; the Church resistance was thus turning into a national resistance. To the government it was obvious that feeling was running so high that the obstinacy of the Church could only be met by force of arms; yet the government was afraid of another national revolution. In the end the Emperor had to seek a way of saving his face. What he did was to dismiss Archduke Albrecht from his position as governor of Hungary, and in his place appoint the Hungarian-born Lutheran Master General of the Ordinance, Louis Benedek. The latter at once called a conference of the leaders of the two Protestant Churches, got their point of view in writing, and forthwith presented it to the Emperor. On May 15, 1860, the Emperor handed Benedek a document which was the virtual annulment of the Patent. It declared that the Patent had no connection with Church affairs, so that all ministers imprisoned because of their resistance to its implementation were to be set free. The resistance of the Church had thus been both justified and effective. By its courageous stand it had won for itself at least as great a degree of freedom as it had known before the issuing of the Patent. The 1867 Austro-Hungarian Agreement Seven years later, in 1867, a new political agreement was entered into between the Austrian and Hungarian States, and the government of Hungary now passed virtually into Hungarian hands alone. Naturally, both the Reformed and the Lutheran Churches eagerly awaited the fulfillment of the promises made in the year of the revolution, 184*8, especially that promise which spoke of “complete equality and reciprocity amongst the Confessions.” But what
