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

1960-03-01 / 3. szám

FRATERNITY

HISTORY

OF THE

HUNGARIAN REFORMED CHURCH

By

IMRE REVESZ, Th. D.

Translated by

GEORGE A. F. KNIGHT

II

THE VICTORY OF THE COUNTERREFORMATION

1608—1715

(Continuation)

The Development of Reformed Church Worship

In the west, where the Reformed and Lutheran Churches originally grew up within one constitutional framework, the attempt was made at first to use a common form of religious worship; but later, when the split took place between the two confessions, Reformed worship developed according to its own genius. The first Rook of Order that has come down to us retains, on the one hand, man}' Roman Catholic elements, such as a form for the casting out of devils, and on the other hand, shows the influence of the Lutheran element by the retention of such terms as “altar” and “wafer”; again, on the other hand, it reveals elements that are very close to the Genevan forms, such as the form for congregational confession that stems from the Zurich model.

The sermon seems to have been built up at first within severely prescribed limits. It was fashioned on the pericope model used originally by the Roman Catholics where the text for each Sunday was prescribed in advance. The Psalms now came to be sung alongside of hymns from a profusion of hymn-books, at first in prose, then