Magyar Egyház, 1956 (35. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1956-01-01 / 1. szám
I MAGYAR EGYHÁZ LETTERS FROM AMERICA . . . New Year Customs Old and New Men through all ages have observed the New Year holiday in traditionally different ways, yet no other noliday reflects so universally man’s common hope for a year of happiness and well-being and his desire for iriendship with his fellows. This spirit of hope and brotherhood has most often expressed itself in customs of eating, merry-making and visiting with friends. It remained for America to add its own flavor to the world’s New Year customs. Sports-loving Americans assigned their most popular classics to New Year’s day and began to cheer for their favorite teams and the new year at the same time. The Rose Bowl college football game, following the famous Pasadena (California) Tournament of Roses, got its start in 1916 and set the pattern for big and little “bowl” games throughout the nation. The spectacular mummers’ parade in Philadelphia is another New Year’s day event typically American in expression. The mummers’ parade, a distant relative of the Old English mummers’ plays, had its start as a city-wide festival on January 1, 1876. On recent New Year’s days as many as two million spectators from all parts of the East have watched fantastically costumed string bands and masqueraders frolic along Philadelphia’s Broad Street. Unusual as are some American observances, however, a great body of New Year festivities engaged in here are inherited from Europe. In France and Scotland New Year’s day became and remained the most important festival of the year; a time for exchanging gifts, cards and visits among kith and kin. The traditionally dour Scot threw tradition to the winds and named his New Year’s Eve, “Hogmanay,” grouping it with New Year’s day as the “Daft Days.” “Hogmanay,” too, is the cry of the Scottish children who flood the streets on New Year’s eve and demand cakes and fruits from the neighbors. To touch a pig on Saint Sylvester’s eve (December 31st) brings good luck, Hungarians believe. In the principal restaurants and cafes of Budapest, a live pig is turned loose at midnight and, amid confusion and merriment, the guests scramble after it. After the evening meal on New Year’s eve in Lithuania, two or three masked men and women, carrying flaring torches, enter a house in the village where they eat and drink, dance and sing. When they leave, their host and hostess, also masked, accompany them to the next house. Before the convivial night has ended, the torchlit prosession includes most of the village. In England a glass of wine and slice of bun loaf are rewards for visitors who “first-foot” (arrive first) at a home following the birth of a new year. A “firstfoot” brings with him the traditional symbols of warmth and prosperity — coal, bread and salt — and is welcomed because he “lets in” the New Year. Representing the old year, too, he leaves by the back door. The New Year celebrations in America, like so much else in this various land, are a blending of the old and the new. In this great amalgamation lies our strength and promise as a nation. It is this basic aspect of American life that especially interests the friends and relatives abroad to whom our millions of letters will go during the holiday season. C.C. 13 THE MINISTER'S SALARY . . . A minister today is one of the lowest paid professional persons in this wealthiest of nations. This is the finding researchers of the National Council of Churches made public today. From the records of three large denominations — tne only ones that report this informations — these researchers have discovered that some ministers’ salaries are slightly on the increase, but still do not keep pace with those of persons laboring in lay fields. The increases are the first ones noted, however, since the National Council began keeping records in 1953. In the United Presbyterian Church pastor’s salaries have grown enough to give them 3 percent more buying power than in 1939. In the Congregational Christian Churches, the increases give pastors almost 6 percent more buying power than in 1939. The Protestant Episcopal Church, the third reporting body and the one in which salaries are traditionally higher, has registered slight increases for its clergymen, too, but the average ’53 salary gives them less purchasing than they had in 1939. It does, however, give them more than for any year since 1946. “Probably more church members and lay persons generally are feeling increasing concern about pastors’ low salaries,” said Dr. Benson Y. Landis, associate director of the National Council’s department of reseach and survey, and editor of the 1956 Yearbook of American Churches, in which the study is published. “That may accout for rise in salaries. But, in terms of food and clothing, the clergy, disconcertingly enough, still do not come off as well as the average member of lay society.” Vetitettképes előadáshoz a kanadai UJ ÉLET kiadásában megjelent, 2x2” méretű, alábbi diapozitív (slide) -sorozatok kaphatók kölcsönzésre magyar és angol kisérő-szöveggel, a szállítási költség megtérítése mellett Rev. K. D. TÓTH, MOUNT BRYDGES, Ont. címen: “MAGYAR REFORMÁTUS EGYHÁZI ÉLET NYUGATKANADÁBAN” 40 kép “MAGYAR TÖRTÉNELEM” 52 kép “MAGYAR REFORMÁTUS EGYHÁZTÖRTÉNET” 42 kép MEGJELENT A SZTÁRAY HANGLEMEZ KIADÁS ELSŐ KÖTET - 12 ZSOLTÁR A PASSAICI MAGYAR REFORMÁTUS EGYHÁZ ÉS BERTALAN IMRE LELKIPÁSZTOR ÉNEKLÉSÉBEN. Kapható: a Passaici Ref. Egyház irodájában, 220—4th St., Passaic, N. J. — Ára $5.00 T
