HIS-Press-Service, 1985 (8. évfolyam, 26-28. szám)
1985-02-01 / 28. szám
HIS Press Service No.28, February 1985 Page 3 of 1956 showed all too clearly how urgently a true real-politik was needed; and the unjust methods which had been applied up till then, were not reconciliable with a state leadership striving for consolidation whose policy was aimed at creating a national unity. It was therefore considered be better to dissolve the State Office for Church Affairs with its stalinistic guidelines (31st of December 1956), whereby the officials of this State Office for Church Affairs disappeared from the bishops' chancelleries. In a decision which was recently confirmed in 1983 and which is still valid today, the Central Committee of the Party laid down the guidelines of the new policy towards the Church in 1958, thereby fixing the relationship between Church and State. In order to guarantee the carrying-out of this ruling, the State Office for Church Affairs was brought in again, for the most part with the same officials as before (June 1959). A very notable initiative for the forming of Church policy was started up within the Academy of Sciences in Hungary in the form of critical examinations of religion and the scientific results of the examinations. This team of researchers also worked out several guidelines for the new Church policy. Looking back at the Fifties it has to be said with justification that the oppressive measures and persecutions brought other results apart from just disadvantages to the Church: During this period the Church got rid of a number of superfluous burdens, such as the totally outdated - from an economic point of view - Church estates. But also in fact that the various possibilities of pastoral care were taken away from the faithful and that they were made to undergo a kind of ideological "withdrawal cure", had, at the same time, a boomerang effect; for a real spiritual hunger for the values of the gospel was thus aroused among the people. The fact that religious base groups were established so early in Hungary, can be traced to the prohibition of every kind of religious society. The people for whom religion in the community was a necessity looked for a replacement which they found in the form of groups of frierds interested in religion. Moreover the critical activities directed by the State against religion aroused interest in religious issues among the non-believers. In its attempt to re-educate the people according to the "socialist view of man" the State had failed; the socialist values did not seem to have any attraction. In view of this fiasco the Church with the alternatives she was offering, had the best chances: The persevering integrity of those people discriminated in so many ways - if not even persecuted - because of their religious beliefs, became a shining example for many young people as well as adults who were searching in vain for ideals and values.
