Hungarian Church Press, 1950 (2. évfolyam, 4-13. szám)

1950-06-01 / 10. szám

several thousand people, and we have had, in- winter time, Bible schools in many places»

The 75th anniversary cf the Baptist mission in Hungary was an outstanding evezi t cf 1948. Our jubilee coincided with the centernary cf the Hungarian war of Freedom and with the 80eth anniversary of oh~ mission cf cur Baptist brethren in Soviet Russia. Out denomination arranged, in', this year, great exhibition in Budapest, with historical documents, letters, manuscripts, codices, drawings, pictures, memorial tablets and other objects, various graphs showing the history of the Bpptist mission in- Hungary, its struggles, from the time of the Reformation onwards and its subsequent martyrdom, then its revival. Out* History consists of three periods; fronv1873, our fellowship has been at work without interruption. The General Meeting, on this occasion, was closed with a public meeting in the Hall of Sports in; Budapest, with several thousand.people attending and our choir and orchestra, which nunmobrs 300 members, performing. Thanks be tc God fer all this!

Declarations cf the Church Leaders...

In the spring.cf 1945> the Presiduum cf the Free Churches had still been under the influence of recent horrors and those \ bitter experiences which cur free churches, net cnly collectively but also in their individual members, had to undergo before 1945. In the retrospect, such a Chimborazo of administrative grievances loomed up before our eyes that it was little wonder that our Presiduum, in its memorandum to' the Interim Parliament, urged new legislation with regard to religious matters and protested against all legal arrangements whereby certain chunehos were favoured at the expense of the others, and the administrative agencies being used as instruments, by certain churches, against . other denominations, or acc gting instructions and suggestions from certain favoured churches, against civil disabilities or persecutions of citizens on account of their religious conviction. New legislation was urged because the prevailing laws,affecting religious matters, particularly the Act of 1948 and Act XLIII of 1395» had become obsolete. Moreover, the first of those Acts was never really put into effect and the second, while purporting to express the freedom of religion, was really a mere patchwork.

Then, in September, 1945, on the National Conference of Baptist Pastors, which included the lay seniors of the congregations, a solemn declaration was made to the effect that the ideal relation of church and state was expressed in this formula:"Free church in free state". In this declaration, the pdstors' Conference defined the conception of religious liberty, both' in its legal and in its.spiritual aspects, and made the further statement that church and state can only' work to each other’s benefit, if they function beside each other, independently of each other, y^t morally supporting each otfcer. Hence the healthiest arrangement involves the separation of the two. This act would clearly express the democratic constitution of the state and the spiritual nature of the church.

It was also a notable feet that, towards the end of the first full year after the liberation, many free church leaders

Hungarian Church Press