Calvin Synod Herald, 1981 (81. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1981-03-01 / 3-4. szám

REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

5

BISHOP IMRE VARGA

First Corinthians 5:58 — “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

We human beings live in three areas of time. We remember the past, we exist in the present, and we hope and plan for the future. Let us this afternoon look at both the past and the future from the standpoint of those of us who in the present remember and honor a very great man of God, Bishop Imre Varga. We celebrate his life and ministry that enriched the lives of so many, and we express our gratitude to God for his humanity and Christian faith. Bishop Varga was not only a leader in his own Church but was also an ecumenical pioneer and leader.

Three things have impressed me as I have reflected on his distinguished career. The first is his churchmanship. I knew him for more than a quarter of a century and worked closely with him in the affairs of the World Council of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. We first became friends in 1954 at the General Council of the Reformed Alliance in Princeton. He represented his Church there and later on that summer in Evanston at the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches. The Cold War was at its height, there was great suspicion, but Bishop Varga conducted himself in such a way that we knew from the beginning he was a Reformed churchman and a Christian brother.

Bishop Varga was a great churchman because he was a reformed catholic. He inherited from the Reformation the catholicity of the Word, the catholicity of the Church, and the catholicity of the world. His postgraduate training was in the Scriptures. This was the area of his teaching, and throughout his life he had an abiding love for Biblical study and for Biblical preaching. Because of his commitment to the catholicity of the Word, he insisted in his Church that the whole Gospel be heard, not a partial or a truncated one. He assisted his ministers in preaching the whole counsel of God that is found in Him who is the eternal Word, Jesus Christ.

Bishop Varga also epitomized in his life the catholicity of the Church. He was a pioneer in ecumenical relations, an honored and respected voice of the Magyar Reformed, not only in Slovakia but in many other lands. He was able from his own centered faith to reach out and engage other traditions. His heart was big enough to embrace men and women across the spectrum of Christian belief and practice.

And Bishop Varga was one who believed in the catholicity of the world. His interests were as broad as the human family, and his travels took him into many cultures. We were together annually when the Executive Committee of the Reformed Alliance met, and we would hold over luncheon or dinner what we

called our ecumenical seminar. He was interested in the human condition and in every effort to promote peace and to break down barriers. I have a special memory of his joy in visiting Brazil in 1959, when a General Council was held in Sao Paulo. It was his first visit to that great sub-continent, but he made lasting friendships with many leaders of the Brazilian Church as well as many others who belonged to the common people of that land.

The second quality of Bishop Varga that I always found impressive was his great pastoral gift. He served as Bishop, pastor of pastors, from 1953 to 1980. He was not an autocrat; he was a pastor. I told him that he had taught me the meaning of primus inter pares, first among equals. He was first, the leader of his clergy, but he was also equal. He was a pastor. He had great joy in working with his pastors in planning their preaching. He would take the themes of world assemblies, anchor them in Biblical passages, and make their insights available to pastors and congregations. When he was our guest in Princeton, he spent many hours discussing continuing education for his pastors.

His pastoral gift was a part of his great humanity. I shall never forget being a guest in his home in 1956, a home filled with joy and adorned with his wife and bright, spirited children. I also saw him go through the valley of the shadow when he lost the mother of his children. He was our guest on his last visit to the United States some two years ago, when he was the guest of the United Presbyterian General Assembly that met in San Diego. His zest for life had not diminished and his commitment to his people was stronger than ever.

Bishop Varga was a realist. He knew and observed the litany that one must enact on visits to Prague. He knew the limitations of the society in which he lived, but he also knew how to accomplish his goals and keep the respect of his pastors and people.

To Bishop Varga I owe a great debt for teaching me the real meaning of the doctrine of infant baptism. It happened when I was on a preaching mission among his churches in Slovakia. This took place a few weeks before the Hungarian Revolution in October, 1956. Tensions were high then. We flew from Prague to Kassa on a Saturday afternoon, and that night the preaching mission began. I had never had such a moving experience. Every house in Kassa was pockmarked from bullets from World War II, for the fight had raged from house to house scores of times. That night we walked down a dark street toward a church at its end, the door was opened, and the church was packed with people. Bishop Varga welcomed us, and the congregation sang Psalm tunes from Geneva. I was at home. At dawn the following morning we began a motor trek down the valley in two automobiles. Suddenly the cars halted and Bishop Varga took us to a point where we could see the valley below. In it were three villages, each with a spire pointing toward heav