Egyháztörténeti Szemle 17. (2016)
2016 / 3. szám - SUMMARIES IN ENGLISH - Kovács Ábrahám: The centre of Reformed home mission in Budapest. A short history of the German-speaking Affiliation (1859-1912)
Summaries in English The centre of Reformed home mission in Budapest A short history of the German-speaking Affiliation (1859—1912) Kovács, Ábrahám The history of the German-speaking Affiliated Church in Budapest is strongly interwoven with the origin, development and spread of home mission organisations and revivalism within the Reformed Church of Hungary. This small congregation was established by the Church of Scotland in 1859 which had already been in the country since 1841. The peculiarity of its history lies in the fact that the members of this church were not ethnic Hungarians who profoundly impacted the overwhelmingly Hungarian speaking Reformed churches across the entire nation. The establishment of the Affiliated Church owes a lot to the Evangelical-Pietist alliance initiated by a variety of people whose conviction was to pray and work for the spread of kingdom of God encountering unbelief and liberal theology. The first era of the congregation was between 1859 and 1863. It introduces and explains how and why the congregation came into being as a result of a clash between evangelicals and liberals. Second, the study shows that the first associations of home mission were formed during the period of 1864- 1869. Then, the members of the congregation decided to build a church during the next 8 years, a remarkable story in itself. Upon completing this ambitious project the congregation was able to focus on its very remarkable period when it saw the establishment of missionary organisations that became the model for national movements like YMCA and Sunday school movement. Shortly after the fruitful and successful period conflicts began to undermine the missionary enterprises of the church due to several reasons within the church. This internal clash that is related very much to issues of change of leadership, Magyarisation and theological outlook the home missionary organisations were disconnected from the Affiliated Church which gave birth to them several decades ago. During the era of 1900 and 1914 the former revivalist and their successor needed to rethink the concept and ways of doing home mission work, now outside the sphere of their mother congregation. The story of this small congregation is a great witness to the successful transplantation of an evangelical-Pietist endeavour that bore many fruits for the Reformed Church of Hungary.
