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

1950-07-15 / 12-13. szám

it took out the ooul of our charitable service and, with the pretext of support, purposely quenched the spirit of stewardship, Over against this, the church has now and will have only sc much significance as much love - spontaneous and ooming from faith - slio will manifest in her Service and stewardship, to the exercise of which she has now full freedom.

Neither must we forget that it was the economic, social and political development of the last five years that established our oomplete independence from the Roman Catholio cliurch which used to be, In spite of the assurances of state laws, but a theoretical reality. The Reformed Church was, in the old system, a mere appendage of the Roman Catholic Church and so, in the changes of her life, she necessarily followed the lead of the Román church. Owing to this dependence in tho past, our Reformod people have still not freed themselves, even during the last five years, from under the social and political influence of the Roman Catholic Church, and this failure has been a restraining and weakening factor in their evangelical faith. It is a great blessing of God that Ho separated our church, in the present social order, from Roman interests, thereby making clear what was obsoured by falsehoods in tho past, namely that there is no travelling together with the Roman church, because the Reformed Church must toko, by faith and common sense, the road which will load her back, by tho social fulfilment of the great commandment of love, to those groups with which the generation of tho Reformation identified itself: to the workers and the peasants. Yet this decision must not be interpreted as though the believers in the evangelical church were enemies of their brethren in tho Roman Catholic Church.lt even involves our missionary obligation toward the members of the Romnnd Catholic Church.

I shall deal briefly with those inner ovonts which,by the grace of God, have taken place in our congregations: the blessings of tho evangelization, the "thirst of hearing the words of the lord*1, the subsequent study in many places, the growing theological and confessional unity, the establishment of the fellowship of missionary work in the congregations, the hopeful beginning of the practice of stewardship which is destined to become the fundament of the economic autaroby of our church in tho future. I mention only these, but wo know that those are the main objects of our thanksgiving.

In thanking God we may also point out that all those are secured and guaranteed by the Agreement which was concluded in 19 48, bo tween our church anti the state. We do not think meroly of the letters of this Agreement, but of the spirit which pervades it. This is the spirit of understanding,reasonableness and willingness to solve the emerging problems on the basis of mutually produced information. This spirit is more valuable than the mere letters, for this secures for us that narrow path on which wo are to follow our Lord in this world, in prayer, in love, in service.

Hungarian Church Press