Magyar Egyház, 1995 (74. évfolyam, 1-4. szám)
1995 / 1. szám
MAGYAREGYHÁZ 13. oldal It should be noted that these tragic situations in the Carpathian Basin are not globally unique. We still must mention this because they concern similarity to relations between Hungarian Reformed people and various other ethnic groups living together. To quote some examples it is common knowledge that ethnic, racial and religious hostility dominate the lives Sinhalese and the Tamil of Sri Lanka, hatred between the Muslim and the Christian in the Soudan, also intercommunal harmony has been shattered among the indigenous and Indian origin Fijians of the island group of Fiji, to say nothing about Israeli-Palestinian enmity. This was necessary to characterize an extra ordinary situation where a combination of Reformed and Lutheran Hungarians of two different ethnicity and culture have come to live together and still do in the heartland of present Hungary. The Reformed were and are Hungarians, the Lutherans ( called “evangélikusok” in Hungary) were and are Slovaks. This extraordinary situation exists in the city of Békéscsaba, a city in the Great Plain, East-Southeast from the river Tisza, close to the present Roumanian border. Population about 50,000. Next cities westwards are Orosháza and Hódmezővásárhely. As a seminary student I spent a Christmas holiday in Békéscsaba as a College legátus. Békéscsaba had also a fairly big Reformed congregation being able to afford a legátus sending a gift to the College of Debrecen. The majority of Békéscsabai population was “evangélikus.” It had a huge evangélikus templom. Two of the neighboring cities, Orosháza and Szarvas had also big evangélikus churches. Although my story goes back close to 60 years I remember that Christmas very well not only because the Reformed minister had two lovely daughters but also because I was told the fascinating story of the Slovak evangélikus people’s friendly neighborly relation with the Hungarian Reformed congregation. The story goes like this. By the middle of the 18th century the town of Békéscsaba lost its population - it was about the end of the Turkish occupation. Around the middle of the century the place was resettled with Slovaks who strangely were Lutherans (evangélikusok) and religious people. The worship services of these new settlers were conducted in Slovak (“tótul”). According to church minutes the first sermon in Hungarian was preached in 1815, then also at the consecration of the Great Lutheran Church in 1824. Proof of Slovak-Hungarian friendly relationship was the 1836 resolution of the congregational meeting according to which in consideration of some church members understanding Hungarian only it was resolved “as right and necessary” to preach the Word of God in Hungarian on the afternoons of the second days of the great holidays and also on the morning of the day of King Stephen. From 1880 to 1944 was the period of magyarization of Békéscsaba due partly to the migration of the needy class from the city. Next, the 1946-48 population exchange resulted in the departure of about 7500 Slovak-language people. Slovak-language church services were still faithfully sustained, Hungarian language services, however, grew in attendance. A recent report says that in one of the evangélikus churches Slovak language services with sermons are still being held on weekday mornings. It can be said, however, that the Slovak language does not dominate church life anymore. At functions of religious nature like school year openings, anniversaries, even funerals, although a few words are always said in Slovak, or a traditional hymn is sung in Slovak, the rest of the service is conducted in Hungarian as most of the general audience and mainly the young people do not understand Slovak. Quite often this is also the case with sermons: the worship service is interspersed with a Slovak prayer and a hymn is sung in Slovak; the rest is in Hungarian. We can reverse the situation if we examine what we have in our Hungarian Reformed churches in America and Canada where some functions are still said in Hungarian and the rest in English. Take the example of Roebling or Duquesne, Pennsylvania. The American situation, however, is not unvaried: there are congregations of the “little Hungarian — mostly English” type but there are others in which Hungarian is the dominant language (like Phoenix, Hollywood, Windsor and more) while there are some congregations where each language is the choice of a sizeable proportion of the congregation (like Trenton or Allen Park). This variability is characteristic of Hungarian Reformed church life in America. The language-problem in the Békéscsaba-area boils down to the shortage in bilingual Slovak- Hungarian clergy. In America and Canada we have to deal with more than the shortage of biligual Hungarian - English clergy. Due to the mixed marriages of different kinds the composition of the membership of the congregation consists of many languages, of a wide range of ethnic affiliations, religions and even races. Therefore in order to keep not only the name but also the character of our churches Hungarian here is what is needed; devotion to Hungarian Reformed historical heritage, faithfulness to Reformed confessional consciousness and reciprocal loyalty to the languages and ethnicities of the families involved. And, by the grace of god, love to be magyar református as the gift of God. Andrew Harsanyi Sources: “Kétnyelvű szolgáltatások gyülekezeteinkben”, Lelkipásztor, 1994/11 Ethnicity and Nationalism, WARC-UP, Sept. 1994
