Hungarian Church Press, 1968 (20. évfolyam, 2. szám)

1968-06-01 / 2. szám

HOP Vol XX Special Number - 49 - (07691)

1968 No 2

made our country a sociological museum« The main moral support cf this obsolete order was the Roman Catholic Church with her vast latifundia: it was this church that rocked the cradle of the so-called "Christian Hungary"« But the Protestant churches; too. had their share in this, although the very fact that the country was often called Regnum Marianum might have served them as a warning* The Protestant churches, however, betrayed their traditi ons;hoping that, in the emerging and consolidating counter-revolutionary system, they, too, will gain political and economic influoioe and advantages« This hope, though in a modest measure, was actually fulfilled« The so-called "Christian course" took the field, and no one had a chance in the political arena who refrained from tha use of the slogan "Christianity". The main traits of this programme were anti-Semitism, anti-communism and revisionism which demanded the restitution of the old frontiers of the country*

In the ideological field, "Christian Hungary" was unable to dissociate from the ideology of Hitlerian fascism, and, in the political realm, she was progressively reduced to a dependent status. Thus she first gave her support to German aggression, then took part in it, and finally, she became a battlefield of World War' IJ.B Yet even after the war, the church leaders continuing in their offices cherished the hope that, with a oertain degree of democratisation and with Western help, the old system can be further maintained.

In the period follov/ing World War II, it was a hard task for the church to make the transition frcci the old social system into a new one cf whioh it had only fatally deformed ideas. But it was soon revealed that the ohurch, as long as it persisted in being the same church that it had been in the old system, was utterly unable to negotiate this transition. GFor Göd, in the disaster in which the war ended, pronounced His just judgment not only on the old social order but also upon the old life pattern of the churcji which was closely interwoven with the former.. It became clear that a new chapter of church history was about to begin into which the church could only alter through the narrow gate of repentance, - in the words of Albert Bereozk^ - only in the way of confidently and obediently accepting the gracious judgment of God. God himself helped the church through this narrow gate , showing the way of deliverance frem the bondages of our own past and opening up before us the prospects of future-.

The transition into the new form of life was rather unexpected, yet the grace of God had not left the church without seme kind of a preparation for the new order* Ws would give a wrong portrait of ourselves if we were to keep silent about the antecedents of this preparation during the period between the two war3= It was not only after World War II that we first discovered the pattern of the serving church, neither is it only' since 1948,the year in which we made our Agreement with the socialist state, that we have been walking in this path of the serving church.

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