Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1960-10-01 / 10. szám
18 FRATERNITY Dutch and English Curches sent considerable sums of money to support students in the Reformed theological colleges at Sárospatak, Nagyenyed and Debrecen. This was very necessary over long periods of the century, since students were often not allowed to leave the country or were seized at the frontrier on trying to leave, and forced to serve in the Habsburg army. Again and again, too, returning students bad to hand over at the frontier all the theological books they had bought at great expense and were bearing with them for use by the theological colleges. Yet, despite such difficulties, large numbers did succeed in getting an education abroad. Over one particular period of 20 years (which included four when no permits were granted) 700 youths received passports for foreign stud}7. On the other hand, it is noteworthy that over the space of the 200 years between 1578 and 1782 only 580 Roman Catholic students went to Rome to study at the fons et origo of the teaching of that Church. Missionary Work in Bohemia-Moravia One of the most romantic chapters in the century under review is the manner in which the Hungarian Church responded to a Macedonian call from its neighbours to the north. Incidentally, the story reveals that despite the formalism in religion which we have seen had invaded some of the city pulpits, the Church was evidently evangelical and missionary minded at heart. Bohemia and Moravia were both part of the Habsburg Empire, and they were both affected, along with Hungary, by Joseph II’s Edict of Toleration. The Hussite Church (or Czech Brethren Church, as it is called today) had been left in an exhausted condition after the long struggle of the Counter-Reformation, and the Edict of Toleration found it sadly torn, its people scattered, and with almost no ministers or church buildings left at all. Many of the simple folk were quite unlettered in their faith, the more enterprising having fled to Hungary throughout the long years of religious persecution, and had been
