Hungarian Church Press, 1957 (9. évfolyam, 14-15. szám)

1957-11-30 / 14. szám

HCHP XI.30,1957, Vol.IX/l4- 13 -169

we were in preaching and how this great cause called for our most fervent prayers and most devoted efforts. We all must be thankful for the work which, under the inspiring guidance of the synod's commission, the commissions on preaching in the presbyteries and then, branching forth frpm the presbyteries, the pastors* circles and fellowships of theological work, with their continuous endeavour over many years, actually accomplished. The charge that this .struggle of ours for purer and fuller preaching - of 'course, our faults, and one-sided tendencies freely admitted, as seen in my foregoing confession - had the purpose of foisting what to say on the preachers, is simply unfounded. The truth is that we carried on a struggle for the better understanding of God's holy Word, and also for the end of having as much love as possible to our people living under the trials of the great transformation, that is, our aim was to find for the man of today,here and now, in the socialist world, in the Hungarian People's Republic, the message of guidance, cncouragemoit and strength. Even those refusing to share all our views must admit how much they profited in those years by the work of collective learning and sharing. I was constrained to emphasise this one thing, the renewal of preaching,' as it was obviously the source of that fruitful living to whioh I have just referred: the inward and outward growth of the congregations.

From Ootober, 1956..•

I would greatly prefer to keep silent on what happened in our church in the autumn of 1956, Since, on the one hand, I was personally very strongly affected by some of those events, and, on the other hand, I was only a passive a distant onlooker of those events, I could find reasons for giving a silent treatment to all that happened in those months. God is my witness how reluctantly I come to the decision to tell you what is most necessary about those baleful events of our church life. When, after two years, the highest governing body of the Danubian Church District is convened, it is obviously not possible to ignore certain facts the knowledge and proper assessment of which are absolutely necessary for the orientation of the convocation of our Assembly I must, therefore, give you the necessary information, trying to avoid what might deepen the existing wounds, - as, alas, we cannot wipe them off the record, and their healing, by God's grace and through the ministration of love that beareth all things, will necessarily take a long time.

It would be a mast difficult task to analyse the earthquake of the 23rd of October, with its causes and merciless consequences which have rea.ched down to our present. I am also convinced that this is not our ta.sk. What we have to state is already contained in the foregoing part cf my report. In the concluding chapter on Our Self-Scrutiny I said: "If we were nevertheless right with our insight that we live off the righteous and merciful judgment of God in this land, in the Hungarian People's Republic, and it is here that we build the Reformed Church in Hungary according to a socialist society, then the rejection of this insight could only have resulted in God's new and humiliating judgment". Without trying to explain the whole of the Hungarian crisis, I must say that even the main features of the church's crisis are inseparable from the general, let us say openly, political events. We must interpret these political events from our viewpoint, that is, by applying to them the aforesaid statement, and it is only from here, from the acceptance of God's will, that is, from the fact of obedience or disobedience that we may find the vantage point of orientation. This, however, does not mean that we,too,try to reduce those events to a simple formula. Even today we deeply feel that the agglomeration of events in those days was a most complicated one in which a great variety of factors were interwoven. One who watched those events from some distance - as, for instance, from a hospital - oould not help being moved by something that was honourable arid by something that

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