Bethlen Almanac 2000 (Ligonier)

Az amerikai egyháztestekben - In other denominations

Prof. Elizabeth Kiss, Keynote Speaker at the HRFA Convention Banquet September 25, 2000

I am especially delighted to be able to visit Toledo for the first time, a city with a proud Hungarian heritage and one with a special place in my family’s heart. In 1948, my father had been imprisoned by Hungary’s Stalinist regime and my Mother was living in Hajdúnánás in eastern Hungary with my sister Bori, then an infant. As you know, this was a time of great hardship for everyone in Hungary, but especially for those whom the regime branded counter-revolutionaries. My father was permitted visitors only every six weeks, for 10 minutes, and those precious minutes with his young wife were the eagerly anticipated highlight of his existence. But money was terribly scarce and the bare necessities of life expensive, and one month my Mother realized to her despair that she would not have enough to pay the train fare to Budapest.

Then, something miraculous occurred: just a few days before the appointed day for visits at my father’s prison, a package arrived from the United States. It was from the Reverend Ferenc Ujlaky, minister of the Hungarian Reformed Church here in Toledo and President of the Hungarian Reformed Federation from 1931 to 1956. It contained unheard of luxuries in those days - coffee and cocoa - and a letter from Reverend Ujlaky expressing his concern and support. He had met my father in 1945 while on a humanitarian mission to Hungary bringing penicillin and relief supplies to the war-ravaged country.

My Mother immediately rushed to the store to sell the unopened coffee and cocoa, and with the proceeds she was able to see my father. As she tells the story half a century later, it is clear that for her this package was a lifeline stretched across the Atlantic. It told her that her family’s suffering and hardship were not forgotten, that Hungarians far away were offering their sympathy, their resources, and their prayers. We will always be grateful to Reverend Ujlaky, to the Toledo Reformed congregation, and to the Federation for that precious gift.

Now picture for a moment, standing beside my family, all the others, the many thousands of them - the widows and orphans, the elderly, the working people, the students, and the congregations - whose lives have been uplifted through the efforts of the Hungarian Reformed Federation. Reverend Ujlaky’s gift captures something that lies at the heart of the Federation’s mission, a generous and practical spirit of solidarity.

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