Erős Vár, 1948 (18. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1948-10-01 / 10-11. szám
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE HUNGARIAN CHURCH In order that we might understand and fully appreciate the grave conditions and tragedies which Hungary as a country, and within its boundaries the Church of Christ, must face today in this present post-war era, it is essential to know some historic facts about Hungary. Hungary, as a soverign country, has existed in its present Central European site since 895, when the “Magyars” took possesion of it as their permanent home. Some of the original inhabitants of that section, such as the “Slovaks” in the North and the “Roumanians” in the East, subjected themselves to the conquering “Magyars’ and became a part of the Hungarian kingdom, extending and increasing its might from the Carpathian Mountains to the Adriatic Sea for more than a thousand years. Christianity was first introduced to the Hungarian nation in the latter part of the tenth century by the first Hungarian king, Stephen I, who was later canonized as “St. Stephen” by the Roman Catholic Church. From this time on, throughout the Middle Ages, the Hungarians took a vivid part in the spiritual life as well as in all the movements of European Christianity. To the Roman Catholic Church, Hungary represented itself as being the furthest eastern outpost in the mideastsrn and southeastern European sector able to defend the Church of Rome against the Orthodox Church of Russia, Ukraina, Roumania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, and proved her defense of Christian civilization against the Islam, against the Turks in a long chain of heroic battles that endured for nearly two centuries. The legendary and ideal figures of the first great Christian royal heroes and saints (as for example, St. Stephen, St. Emeric, St. László and Blessed Margaret) took shape after the pattern of Western European Christian ideals of royalty, knighthood and monasticism. The earnestness and vigor which characterized the medieval Hungarian Catholics in the observance of their religious and ecclesiastical duties became known all over Europe, and this repute continued up until the end of the fourteenth century. In the middle of the fifteenth century, however, corruption reared its ugly head among the rest of the Roman Catholic world and thus became manifest in Hungary also. As, a result, while the high dignitaries of the Church lived in luxury and abundance, an increasingly large number of parish priests suffered untold miseries and ofttimes, in order to make a living, resorted to running inns or practicing usury. Friars and monks were frequently found and caught for thievery and other criminal acts. The medieval sectarian movements which sprang up all throughout Europe in thé prereformation period, as a reaction to such general evils, found fertile soil in Hungary also. Perhaps the greatest impulse for the Hungarian reformation was to be found in the very depth of the soul of a nation which suffered the tortures and miseries of a long and seemingly endless war against the Mohammedan Turks — a war which ended in a catastrophe in 1526, on the battlefield of Mohács, when the Hungarian forces were badly defeated, this disastrous defeat resulting in the consequent occupation of----------------------------------------------------------------------N This copy of the Hungarian Lutheran Monthly is sent to you with the request that you read the short history of the Lutheran Church of Hungary prepared by Dr. Ernest A. Stiegler of St. John's Windish Lutheran Church of Bethlehem, Pa. The Hungarian Lutheran Conference is sending you this copy as a compliment and ask you to pray unceasingly for the imprisoned leaders of the Lutheran Church of Hungary, Bishop Lajos Orda:s, baron Adalbert Radvanszky. and secretary Sándor Varga. Your prayers and your gifts for Lutheran World Action will help to strengthen their faith in their trials. (Publisher.) \____________________________________________4
