Fraternity-Testvériség, 1961 (39. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1961-05-01 / 5. szám

4

FRATERNITY

sessions who was to see that discussions did not take a political turn; if they did, this official could disband the court at once. However, the lay offices that had been discontinued were not allowed to be resumed, and no new bishops were to be appointed; ministers even could not be inducted to their charges without a government permit. As a result, then, of the national uprising of 1848, the Reformed Church had lost most of the ground it had gained throughout the previous century.

The champion whom God raised up at this juncture was a Debrecen minister called Emeric Révész. In 1856-57 he published two important books on the constitution of the Reformed Church. By means of these two publications he educated the membership of the Church in the facts they needed for the struggle that was to follow. And that struggle began almost at once, for in 1859 the Austrian government took from the Church even those rights it had restored only five years before.

The Publication of the Patent

On the 1st of September in that year (1859) there appeared the so-called “Open Command of the Emperor” which came to be known as the Patent. In matter's ecclesiastical the Patent reverted, as a whole, to a constitution for the Reformed Church such as it had not known for centuries. The promulgation of the Patent, in a word, wiped out all that the Church had gained in a 300-year long struggle. What it did was to put the Church under the strict supervision of government officials. No church meetings could be held in public, while even the findings of Kirk Sessions were to be presented for ratification to the Minister of Cults. Ministers and teachers could be appointed only if the State official in question agreed. Similarly, the King had to approve the appointment of a bishop. Church schools were put under the strict and complete control of the government.

(To be continued)