Fraternity-Testvériség, 1960 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1960-10-01 / 10. szám

FRATERNITY 19 enabled to worship in those “articled” places where the Reformed faith had been proclaimed even in the darkest days of the century. Some of these latter immigrants had then slipped back home secretly and helped to keep up the morale of their fellow-countrymen. Some young Bohemian and Moravian jmuths, immediately on the pro­mulgation of the Edict of Toleration, set about their studies in the Debrecen college in order to go to their own country as ministers of the Re­formed faith, but their numbers were not nearly sufficient for the need. So the Czech Brethren Church sent an appeal to Debrecen and Sáros­patak for help, and within the space of a few years as many as fifty young ministers set off for the north, before they knew even a word of the strange Czech language. It was they who virtually set the Czech Brethren Church on its feet, by collecting and forming congregations, and creating church courts where none had existed before. Some even became moderators of Presby­teries of tlie Czech Church, and one Hungarian minister was actually elected bishop of the whole Church. These men translated Books of Order and prayer books from Hungarian into Czech, built churches and schools, saw to the distribu­tion of the Scriptures in the tongue of the people, and so on. After a period of years, a few of the original fifty ministers went back home to Hungary, but the majority remained on in Bo­hemia and Moravia, identifying themselves fully with the Church of their adoption, so that de­scendants of theirs are to be found in the Czecli Brethren Church right to the present day, still bearing their original Hungarian names. (To be continued)

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