Calvin Synod Herald, 1989 (89. évfolyam, 1-2. szám)

1989-07-01 / 1. szám

CALVIN SYNOD HERALD- 5 -REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

The Sárospatak Reformed Academy

1531-1951; 1990—?

Ancient School at Sárospatak returned to the Reformed Church! How would you like to see that headline? Impossible, you say? Preposterous, perhaps? Well, hardly. With all the changes going on in Eastern Europe in general and in Hungary in particular, that transfer is a distinct possibility. Sárospatak never should have been taken from the church in the first place. When the Hungarian state and the Reformed Church in Hungary signed an agreement on October 7, 1948, turning over more than 1,300 schools to the state, one provision was that:

The Government agrees that in view of the merits of the Reformed Church in the field of Hungarian school education, and in order to secure the training of future pastors, the following Reformed colleges with a great historical tradition may remain schools of the church...

First mentioned are the Gymnasium, Lyceum, Teachers’ Institute, and Theological Seminary at Sárospatak, Hungary’s oldest Protestant school, with those of Debrecen, Papa, and Budapest following. How come, then, that things did not turn out that way and that only Debrecen remained as a church institution? The sad answer is that church officials, feeling the pressure of the times and without synodical authorization, gave the schools to the state in 1951 and 1952. Thus it came about that in venerable educational institutions where Jesus Christ had been hailed as Lord, atheism became the official creed. Names were changed, so that the four hundred year old Sárospatak Reformed Academy became the Rákóczy Gymnasium, and pictures of Lenin and others in he Communist pantheon were hung on classroom walls. Colleges, or department, were either eliminated — as happened to the theological seminary — or pressed into the service of the “Party”

and the new society which it promised to create. That does not mean that administration, teachers, and students were transformed into Communists over night. It does mean, however, the beginning of fundamental changes in every department of the school’s life. Education was especially important to the new ideology since it molded the minds of future leaders through the institutional apparatus at hand.

When the new thinking and program were imposed on people, the reaction was at first incredulity, often mixed with a sense of hopelessness and sometimes rage. A close friend in Sárospatak told me later that he died in 1948. He had been a great teacher and administrator, but the change from a historic Christian orientation to the “Party Line” had killed his spirit. Another teacher stressed the need for patience and firm faith in God. “This too shall pass,” was his comforting assurance to himself, me, and others. That hope sustained him.

The faith and hope of those Christian educators, and hundreds of others with similar convictions, has been vindicated. Changes, at first minor and often subtle, which have been going on for over twenty years are accelerating and there is promise of more to come. New leadership in church and state; new laws legitimizing new organizations and societies; new discussion of alternative ways of doing things; a new acknowledgment of past mistakes; and an openness to new ideas are all harbingers, we believe, of better days ahead. There is also a new ferment and desire for improvement, and a determination on the part of many to keep things moving in the same direction. Inasmuch as all this is common knowledge

to readers of this magazine, substantiation is unnecessary. Proof in the educational field is the admission of government officials that the takeover of “Reformed colleges with a great historical tradition” may have been a mistake. Hence the willingness to give those schools back to the church if there is a desire for their return and the church is able to maintain them. The opening of a Lutheran school in Budapest is scheduled for this autumn, and the former Baar-Madas school of the Reformed Church in Budapest will soon be re-opened under the control of a board of trustees representing the four regional synods of the church.

Those of us who have had an association with the former Sárospatak Reformed Academy hope that it too may soon function as a school of the church. Founded in 1531, during the early years of the Reformation as Hungary’s first evangelical school, Sárospatak has had an inspiring history as a bastion of learning and faith. Its return to the church would signalize more than anything the fundamental significance of the changes that have already occurred and the expectation of further improvement in the relationships between the nation, the Reformed Church, and education.

My own association with Sárospatak goes back to the days immediately following the Second World War. The students at Hope College, a school of the Reformed Church in America, wanted to “adopt” a sister institution that had been ravaged during the war. Sárospatak was chosen and, as college chaplain, I had the privilege of advising the students and carrying on the correspondence. As the project grew and substantial sums of money were needed for food parcels, medicines, and shipments of clothing and school supplies, special offerings were taken in scores of Reformed and Christian Reformed churches. The semi-official relationship which developed between the two schools had to be discontinued in 1951, but friendships which had been established have persisted until today.

The new situation in Hungary has fostered increasing desire that the Rákóczy Gymnasium be returned to the church. The conditions set forth by the state were given above; the problem facing the church is funding. With its lands taken from it in 1951, the school has no capital