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The sources of Albert Kovács’ (1838–1904) theological freedom must be analysed in order to understand his theological thinking and determine his place in liberal theology, especially on the wide palette of its Hungarian representatives. In this study, I explore the origins of the influences that impacted him in his childhood, during his theological studies in Transylvania and abroad, that could have shaped his thinking. His childhood years in Mezőbánd were characterised, on the one hand, by the devotion of his family towards the church and, on the other hand, by the indelible imprint of the declining ecclesiastical crisis. During his school years, he became acquainted mainly with the ideology of rationalism, which laid the foundations for his later liberal theological orientation. During his studies in Utrecht and Göttingen, he encountered liberal, mediating and orthodox positions. Upon his return, he came under the influence of the radically liberal Mór Ballagi (1815–1891). Although this clearly set him on the liberal side, his orientation did not preclude the use and application of ideas taken from representatives of confessional theological schools that he has got acquainted with abroad.

Jókai’s works have rarely been examined with respect to their religious content. In this study, I propose an analysis from this particular perspective, examining the Scripture quotations and paraphrases, metaphorical expressions and prayers of one of this author’s most famous novels, A kőszívű ember fiai (The Heartless Man’s Sons). These references attest, on the one hand, to Jokai’s faith and religious practice, and, on the other, to means of expressing the writer’s thoughts more intensely and more sensitively. Exploring and analyzing further religious aspects of the novel will be the task of future studies.

In 1956 Bishop László Ravasz expressed his views on church policy and the general situation of religious communities in Eastern Europe before the meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Galyatető, Hungary. His text was conceived as “advice” addressed to the members of the Bethany Movement. My paper’s main target is to contextualise and publish this interpretation regarding the relationship between Christian Churches and the communist state.
In 1958 a major turning point appeared in the church-state relation on both sides of the “Iron Curtain”. After the Lambeth and Nyborg Conferences, Western openness and diplomatic efforts led to the enlargement of the World Council of Churches (New Delhi 1961), gathering Protestant and Orthodox Churches in the communion of prayer and work. At the same time, Nikita Khrushchev’s totalitarian attempt to annihilate religious structures in the Soviet Union was concealed behind his apparent “disposability for dialogue”. By organising the „Christian” Peace Conference (Prague 1958), the Kremlin continued “destalinisation”, promoting, in fact, Stalin’s policy of apparent peace in the East-West relations, while the political police went on destroying the Church and the aim it was created for. The new abuses were justified by the slogan of “Leninist legality”. Trying to find the Romanian way to build communism, Gheorghe Gheorghiu Dej, the old-new party leader and his subdued judicial system brought religious faith in the prisoner’s box. Persecution focused especially on religious minority groups, such as Catholics, Reformed, Unitarians, Lutheran Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Baptist, and others, but, also, attacked the majority Orthodox monastic life. During the show-trials, the fictive scene became a sacrificial place, where those who were searching for the truth of God fell prey to the injustice of the immolators who imposed by force their atheistic “truth”.
The National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) has been preserving detailed data, descriptions of the facts and nuances concerning thousands of aggressors and victims of (post-) Stalinism. Emblematic was the case of Richard Wurmbrand, who first suffered imprisonment (after a sentence pronounced in a Kangaroo Court), being released afterwards by the authorities in 1964, for an amount of 10 000 USD.