Hungarian Church Press, 1950 (2. évfolyam, 4-13. szám)
1950-03-15 / 5. szám
2-Bungarian Church Press not conflict with what I shall have to do in the Lutheran Church., hut will have t&e same aim. I feel that my work in the church will only then become Christian service when it will be guided by the same ideals which have so far shone on my way and pledged me to loyalty to my people". "I am a writer andv as a writer I have become a politician* I had no office or position in the Lutheran church and I Odd not take part in the inner life of the church. Yet when I ask myself whether my connection with my church aotually amounted to more than having boon baptized and educated in the Lutheran Church and being a member of this church; when I ask this question I feel that I must say: my relation to my church was more than this". "I was born in Orosháza, in one of the largest Lutheran communities in the country, and the first and decisive experiences of my life took place in this town. I cannot regard it as a mere prance that I am the descendant of those Lutherans who, two centuries ago, scorning all comprpmise, were ready in the defense of their faith and truth, to be persecuted. When X heard in the school about the struggles and perseverance of the founding fathers who had to flee from Zomba, from the Transdanubian part of the country, my youthful imagination was fired and the resolution was formed: I shall never be unworthy of their deeds. In Orosháza, in this unpeaceful and poverty-stricken township of Békés, - which has the meaning "Pacific" in Hungarian, - wie fire of liberty and progress often flared up to illumine the Ught of oppression in centuries past. The undaunted Protestant ascendants of the Zomba ancestors often headed the protests gainst tyranny and injustice. I believe, I feel that I was, to small extent, the legacy of these ancestors which moved me, <3on of the poorest countryside, while I was still quite young, to passionate rebellion against all kinds of injustice". "It was in the Lutheran School of Orosháza that I learned the letters which I latex- assembled into books voicing the desires and justice of poor and oppressed peasants. In the same school I learned the struggles of our church in centuries past and the persecutions by the Caraffa3. Then I learned later the lesson which I as writer have never forgotten that, in the history of our church, progress and Protestantism have been inseparably unito.d. It was the ideal of the search after truth that has welded them together. I learned that Protestantism was more than a religious reform; it was also a cultural revolution which involved the general ideals of a social revolution. The vernal breeze of the Reformation opened the buds of freedom;the freedom, from feudal ties, from the shackles of an ossified structure of society. This was especially the case in Hungary where the first spread of Protestantism was marked by a great social movement. It was not only the religious bigotry of the Habsburgs and Catholic nobilty that inspired the Counter-Reformation, but also the fear that the social forces of progress and liberty as represented in Protestantism would endanger their rule. Thus the union of Hungarian Protestantism and Hungarian progress became a symbol in the destiny of preacher poets and psalm-singing galley slaves, on inspiring example for future centuries..."
