Magyar Egyház, 1983 (62. évfolyam, 1-5. szám)

1983-03-01 / 2. szám

MAGYAR GGYhm

11. oldal

CHRISTIANS IN DIALOGUE

-------------------------- ANDREW HARSANYI------------------------Ever since smaller and greater divisions have disrupted the unity of the Christian Church — the two greatest were the Xlth century Eastern-Western division and the XVIth century European Reformation’s multidivision — many attempts have been made to restore the lost unity. There were some regional successes like the union of part of the Greek Orthodox Churches with the Roman Catholic Church in the Austrian Empire, or the so called Prussian Union of 1817 but the endeavor to attain Christian unity got going globally in the various actions of the ecumenical movement late in the XIXth century.

There have been and are many forms of ecumenical action. The many branches of Protestant Churches (later joined by the Eastern Orthodox Churches) formed “councils” locally (in a community, in a state or in a province), nationally (e.g. the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA), or globally (the World Council of Churches). None of these councils aim to be a super-church. They were formed for common witness and for co-operation not to attain doctrinal or to structure organic ecclesiastical unity. COCU (Consultation on Church Union) in America has been trying to attain this kind of unity but lately seems to have lost its vigor. The Roman Catholic Church participates in a number of local and state councils in the United States and Canada, in a limited measure co-operates in higher level councils; in countries with RC majority this is often non existent.

Another form of action toward unity has been the work for inter-family co-operation and intra-family unions. These have been and continously are very successful. In the first group we have the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational) the Lutheran World Federation and the various world organizations of Methodists, Baptists and others. Examples for organic intra-family unions are the United Church of Christ (Evangelical — Reformed — Congregational), the United Church of Canada (Presbyterians, Methodists, and others), and just lately the union, or rather reunion, of the two largest Presbyterian bodies in the United States of America. Several Lutheran Churches have been or will be integrated soon. Scores of union churches have been formed in the Third World, in the Far East and in Africa; others are under way in Great Britain and Australia and New Zealand. There are also conversations between various confessional families of Protestantism (e.g. Reformed and Lutherans, Reformed and Baptists, etc.) aiming clarification of positions as to theology and polity and co-operation. The list given here is, of course, not exhaustive just illustrative.

Vatican II. and the establishment of the Roman Catholic Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity gave a new impetus to the ecumenical movement. The Roman Catholic Church is now engaged in a number of “consultations”, “dialogues” with the various Protestant confessional familes (Reformed, Lutherans, Anglicans,

Methodists, Baptists, Disciples of Christ) as well as with the Eastern Orthodox Church. There are regional and world level dialogues going on.

The Reformed Church of Hungary participated in a number of reunion endeavors, interfaith actions of cooperation as well as interconfessional dialogues. To name just a few: Prince György Rákóczi I’s involvement in the Protestant reunion activities of John Dury of the Church of Scotland; the many theological contributions to World Council of Churches and International Missionary Counsil themes; participation in the Leuenberg Agreement; leadership in the world level Reformed- Orthodox Dialogue.

Our Hungarian Reformed Church in America has been an active participant in the American dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Churches of the Reformed/Presbyterian confessional family from its very inception in 1965. Its official name is Roman Catholic/Presbyterien-Reformed Consultation-, its sponsoring ecclesiastical organizations (the “parent bodies”) are the American Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Int err eligious Affairs and the Caribbean and North American Area Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational). It is jointly chaired by Roman Catholic Bishop Ernest L. Unterkoefler and one of the delegates from the Reformed-Presbyterian group appointed by the World Alliance. The writer of this article holds the position of cochairman since 1972.

Members of the Reformed-Presbyterian delegation come from the various World Alliance member churches in the United States. No Caribbean and Canadian member churches are represented because our Roman Catholic partner is the American Bishops’ Conference. The number of participants in each delegation has been between 11 and 9, except in Round I when it was twice as much. The members of our delegation are appointed by their respective denominations and approved by the Area Council of the Alliance. In our present Round IV we have people from the two Presbyterian Churches, the Christian Reformed Church, the Hungarian Reformed Church in America, the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ. In previous rounds the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was also represented. The delegates are mostly professors of theology but we always have some pastors and church administrators, too. Three of our group are women. Theologians are chosen according to their expertise in the themes of the dialogue; thus they are seldom reappointed (“recycled” as we like to call it). Only the two co-chairmen have been working in all rounds of this Consultation.

The Consultation works in three or four year cycles, “rounds”, two meetings a year for two days each the members doing a lot of home-work. The main theme or themes are mutually agreed upon by the two delegations, research papers are presented and discussed, final statement or statements are worked out and published.