Magyar Egyház, 1968 (47. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1968-01-01 / 1. szám

8

MAGYAR EGYHÁZ

REFORMED CHURCH LEADERS SENTENCED IN HUNGARY

In the last two issues of Magyar Egyház we printed letters sent to Bishop Dr. Tibor Bartha, President of the General Synod of the Reformed Church in Hungary, expressing the concern of Hungarian Reformed churchmen in America for their arrested brethren in Hungary (Magyar Egyház, 1967, No. 10, p. 8-9 and No. 11-12, p. 9). Here we print the text of Bishop Bartha’s reply dated December 27, 1967. The reply was sent to those who signed the letter approved by the Eastern District of the American Hungarian Ministerial Association on November 6, 1967 in Trenton, N. J.

Dear Brethren,

The time has come now to give a reply to your jointly signed letter of November 6th. In the matter of the Rev. Balint Kovács and his associates, the Synodical Office has issued the following information:

The Synodical Office is authorized to announce the following:

The Presidium of the Reformed Church in Hungary has been informed by the State Office for Church Affairs that the Court of Budapest had passed a sentence in the judicial action brought against Balint Kovács and his associates. The verdict runs as follows:

“For preparations for a plot, the Court of Budapest has sentenced prisoner Dr. Denes Batiz to a year; prisoner Balint Kovács to six months; prisoners Matyas Bugarszky to seven months; prisoners Imre Tisza and Karoly Dobos to six months’ imprisonment each. The sentence brought against Tisza and Dobos has been suspended for three years of probation.” The persons concerned have been released. The sentence has not come into force yet.

The ecclesiastical authority will comment on the above affair after the judgment has come into force.

In sending you this information, I beg to call your attention to the circumstance, that if follows as a matter of course that authorities can in such cases give information only at a certain time.

I have been aware all along of the fact that your interest in the matter was motivated by your love of our church. In my opinion, the case has been deliberated in wise patience and good will, for which we may praise God.

With brotherly greetings Dr. Tibor Bartha Bishop

North American Reformed Churches Speak Out On Contemporary Affairs

Support for the stand taken by South Vietnam’s Roman Catholic bishops who early in January called for an end to the Vietnam war was voiced by the North American Area Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches at its annual meeting in Atlantic City, January 9-11.

In a resolution adopted by the Council the 100 participants said:

“We welcome the forceful statement made on this past Sunday (January 7) by the Vietnamese Council of Bishops which, according to reports in the American press,

called upon the governments in Hanoi and in Saigon to halt the fighting and join in efforts in restoring peace.

“We direct the same appeal to all governments allied with the Vietnamese government and those supporting their military operations with arms and other materials of war.

“We agree with the Council of Bishops that it is necessary that the bombing of the North cease, and that at the same time infiltration of men and materials into the South cease.

“We join in their fervent plea to the governments of the warring nations: ‘In the name of God, we cry stop!’”

This resolution was adopted as a substitute motion to a prior proposal of the Council’s Commission on Civil and Religious Liberty.

That prior proposal would have had the group of Reformed and Presbyterian churchmen call upon the U.S. government “to cease the bombing of North Vietnam and de-escalate the war in order to help create a climate in which the United Nations can effectively work for negotiations to take place.”

It also would have called upon the United States and South Vietnam and their allies and North Vietnam “to pledge themselves to arbitratiion of the Vietnamese war by the United Nations.”

The substitute motion endorsed by the Council was presented by William P. Thompson, Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church U. S. A. for the following reasons:

“When I learned of the Vietnamese Roman Catholic bishops’ action, it seemed to me that the most creative thing for us to do would be to accept that part that we could concur in.”

“This commended itself to me,” he added, “because the bishops are on the scene and were speaking courageously to the governments of North and South Vietnam. We broadened our statement to speak to all governments, including our own. We now have a balanced statement, directed to those on both sides.”

Mr. Thompson, who visited South Vietnam in June and July as part of a National Council of Churches delegation, further explained that his reasoning was influenced by the “evident motivation of the Catholic bishops which comes out of a religious orientation, centered on religious teachings and feelings that all hostilities should cease.

“I do not think,” he said, “that any men of good will could disagree with that.”

Copies of the Vietnam resolution will be sent to appropriate U. S. government authorities, the South and North Vietnamese governments, the Vietnamese Council of Bishops, the Department of External Affairs of the Canadian government, and to the Council’s member churches.

The Council also focused its attention on “justice and violence in American society” and adopted a resolution directed primarily to members of Christian churches.

“Those of us Christians who are part of the privileged of the U. S. who have driven the dispossessed to despair by our discriminatory practiices in employment, housing and education have more responsibility than that handful who have incited to riot,” the resolution said.

“We confess with shame,” the churchmen declared, “that while calling ourselves disciples of one who came to declare good news to the poor, we have generally connived at their exploitation. We have preachedd nonviolence in our churches and practiced oppression.”

The most effective barrier to irrational destructiveness, the churchmen added, is and has been “the good sense and restraint of the greater part of the Negro community.”