Erős Vár, 1948 (18. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1948-10-01 / 10-11. szám

ERŐS VÁR

#

3

a decade or two, oppression and persecution were again the lot of the Hungarian nation and the Protestant Church.

Fortunately, after 1866, a spirit of reconciliation began, and a status of denominational equality and reciprocity was incorporated into the laws of Hungary. The autonomy of the Hungarian Lutheran Church was thus secured, under which our church conducted its own church and school affairs with full independence. The Constitution of the Hungarian Evangelical Lutheran Church was adopted at the General Synods of 1891 to 1894. In this way the Lutheran Church received certain rights within the State, equal to that of the Roman Catholic Church, and also became a State Church. Church membership was compulsory; church taxes were collected by law; and ministers were elected for life. If a congregation was unable to pay its minister the minimum salary, the government would supply the deficit.

The Lutheran Church of Hungary was divided into four districts, and the four combined districts constituted the general Lutheran Church of Hungary. The congregations were grouped into “seniorates”, similar to our Conferences, with a “senior” presiding over the same. The “seniorates” formed the church district headed by the bishop. Throughout the whole line, from the congregation to the district, a double presidency (laymen and clerical) was practiced. Most of the churches had their own Lutheran parish elementary schools.,

In the little more than fourty years before World War No. 1, by reason of the new liberal laws of the country, both the Lutheran and the Reformed Churches miraculously grew in spirit and in number. Although they always felt and were aware of the ill-will of the official Roman Catholic Church, the laws of the country granted them freedom of expantion.

The joy of these fruitful forty years, however, was soon to be overshadowed by another tragedy which had an immensely adverse influence upon the life of the Hungarian Lutheran Church. Under the terms of the Trianon Peace Treaty in 1919, following World War No. 1, nearly two-thirds of the ancient thosandyear-old Hungarian kingdom was given to three surrounding countries, and so the newlystrengthened Hungarian Lutheran Church was again broken up.

How serious the damage was which affected the church at large is revealed by the following figures: In 1914, the Hungarian Lutheran Church‘s membership was 1,306,384; in 1919, 497,012. In 1914, they had 685 congregations with 709 pastors; in 1919, 248 congregations with 262 ministers. In 1914, the church had 3 theological seminaries with 31 professors; in 1919, one seminary with 7 professors. In 1914,

the church had 1254 elementary parochial schools with 1582 teachers and 122,128 pupils; in 1919, 725 parochial schools with 37,836 pupils. These figures portray very vividly the difficulties the Hungarian Lutheran Church had to face after 1919, as a result of the harsh terms of the Peace Treaty of Trianon. Thereupon, the church, which had born the sufferings of century-old persecutions, began to consolidate its remaining assets and, with the help of God again grew in spirit and in number.

Then once again new trials, tribulations and sufferings struck down upon the Church of Christ in Hungary with all the fury of a hurricane. During those last gruesome war years, Hungary had no choice. It became a conquered tool in the hands of Nazi Germany, and very bitterly paid for her unfortunate share in World War No. II. First the withdrawing Nazis, and later the conquering Russians, reduced its cities, towns and villages to mere heaps of stones and ashes. Of the 1,700,000 buildings and living quarters in Hungary, 821,000 were completely devastated. Not only the withdrawing Nazi forces, but also the conquering Russian armies, confiscated all of its livestock, food and industrial equipment, and stripped the population of Hungary of the very essentials for a surviving existence.

In the month of May of 1946, the Reuter News Agency reported the following news item concerning the public schools in Budapest, — where children by the hundreds collaosed and fainted daLy: In one of the schoolhouses, 178 children were asked what they had eaten for breakfast that morning. Of that number, 21 had had no breakfast whatsoever; 22 had only a small piece of dry bread; 28 had dry bread soaked in a little oil; 47 had only been soup; 24 had a coffee substitute without sugar; 6 had a slice of dry bread with their soup; 2 had boiled potatoes; and only 3 had a little milk or an egg for their breakfast.

Many of Hungary’s churches, schools and other intitutions are in ruins today, and there is very little hope, indeed, that they will be rebuilt in the near future.

A number of the Lutheran congregations in Hungary were bi-linguistic churches, partially composed of an old German stock that had lived in Hungary for three and four centuries. Some of those congregations were the very center of Lutheran activities in Hungary, and now those very same Lutheran Germans have been forcefully expelled from the land they had made their permanent home and have been compelled to retreat to Germany.

Thé Roman Catholic Church in Hungary, which originally held in its possession onethird of Hungary’s properties, lost all of her great wealth to the Communists and is, there-