Journal index

Job 19,25–27 are probably the most widely known verses from his book. This pericope is often evoked on funeral occasions, and many Christians undoubtedly ponder those while struggling with the issue of death. The current study does not aim to correct the Christian faith. From the perspective of systematic theology, the Redeemer of Job and that of the Christians is the very same Christ. This essay attempts to outline the meaning of the text through linguistic and poetical analysis. A text (including a spontaneous one) informs a reader even by the way it was created. That is emphatically true in case of a writing formed, handed down, redacted in a stabilized version. (Scribal mistakes, of course, cannot be excluded, but until proven let the principle of lectio difficilior be followed.) The present essay strives to understand the meaning of Job’s words about his Restorer, who is able to redeem even when the flesh and the heart are consumed.

Job 29,18 is one of the most disputed verses from this chapter, especially with regard to the meaning of the Hebrew term lwx. This word can be rendered either as ‘palm’ (so, e.g. in the Septuagint and the Vulgate), or ‘sand’ (e.g. Saadiah Gaon), or ‘phoenix’ (e.g. Genesis Rabbah, B.Talmud Sanhedrin). Several Hungarian versions support both ‘sand’ and ‘phoenix’. This article shows that the Massora parva suggest that lwx is an example of talHin /double entendre. This means that the massoretes who fixed the text of the Leningrad Codex probably took for granted that lwx referred to both ‘sand’ and ‘phoenix’ as a bird-name.

Mrs. Csekefalvi Tamás Béláné recorded some valuable data concerning the pastoral care of hundreds of Reformed and Catholic people who became refugees in 1940, when they left their village Györgyfalva and fled to the nearby city of Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca. This Christian lady was also involved in cultural and social work which she pursued together with others, and so she organised the “Cultural Association for Refugees from Györgyfalva”. The Association took up the education and cultural entertainment of the younger refugees, and the high standards of these activities were also applied to the cultivation of the rich traditions of the people of village Györgyfalva. The committee members – a list of their names was preserved –, helped the refugees to find work, and assisted those sent to court-martial to gain back their freedom. During the communist era in Romania it was not possible to share these stories of personal or communal suffering.

This lecture endeavours to answer the following questions: In what sense was the 500th anniversary of the Reformation different from any previous celebrations? What is the relationship between modernity and the Reformation? Does the Reformation have a formative role in the contemporary society? This study breaks with the traditional and linear interpretation of modernity and offers reverse methodology. Starting from the vantage point of the modern society, it examines the religious and theological impulses, and those interfaith dynamics that can have a role in shaping/modelling a peaceful coexistence of cultures and religions. These impulses are: the necessary interaction between various branches of science and religion in the academic setting; the value of the spiritual/theological interpretation of reality in our society; the freedom of conscience and religious thought in the secular state and in the church; and the preservation of self-identity in the age of mass manipulation. Pondering over these issues can and will make our celebration more relevant in the contemporary setting.

Abraham Kuyper’s travels to Romania (1905) and Hungary (1916) is not widely known. In his travel book entitled Om de oude Wereld-zee (Around the Ancient World Sea), he describes his traveling around the Mediterranean Sea. The first chapter of his book outlines the threats coming from Asia and an analysis of Islam. The book also contains sixty pages about Romania in which Kuyper compares Romania to Belgium. Kuyper was also received by the Romanian royal family. He foresees a great future for the Romanian people, even though they do not excel in practicing their orthodox faith.

Iván Hadházy was born in Beszterce in 1947 and died painfully young in 1982. He studied Theology in Cluj/Kolozsvár. After graduation he served as a Unitarian minister for a short while, then taught in village schools and worked in the Archives of the Roman Catholic Church. He suffered years of unemployment as nobody dared to offer him a job due to his critical approach to the regime. In his own church, was his greatest support Professor János Erdő, who also preached at his funeral. Rumours told that his death was an “accident” arranged by the Securitate. Without the support of his mother and sister, Iván would have perished both physically and spiritually. These two wonderful women encouraged him in his writing when he called for religious tolerance and the freedom of churches. In his letters, he stood up for the national and cultural rights of the Saxon and Hungarian people and warned against the suppression of minority groups. He tried to air his views by sending his writings to Sándor Huszár and to forums where he thought people would listen.

We are always seeking for the sense of the life, for ourselves and for the place in our family and community. Religion shows a new way to us, according to Jesus Christ’s principles. The son of God not only created a religion, but gave us an example how to live, and sacrifice himself for us. Sándor Karácsony reckons religion as a spiritual behavior, the base of our social contacts. We have to see into our lives and character according to the message of Jesus Christ. The right and appropriate personality can be evolved by individual training.

This essay applies the method of semantic analysis for biblical metaphors. First it highlights the settled meanings of the lexemes of the metaphors under scrutiny. After establishing the sememes, the analysis focuses on the plain or hidden nominal predicative statement of the metaphor, namely only on the context of the tenor and vehicle, seeking for that conjunctive semes which can help us to understand the chosen metaphor. We can realise that the metaphor’s meaning is not definable, being imagined as a fuzzy set, where some semantic marks (or semes) are highlighted and others remain hidden. The larger context introduces other disjunctive semes too, not alluded to previously, thus enabling different connotations for metaphors.

The views of Sándor Karácsony about religious education can be clearly discerned from his writings. The main task of reformed pedagogy is to activate continuously the divine notions in this continuously changing world. Protestant teachers must accomplish their daily work according to the Gospel of Christ. The Hungarian Reformed Church was a so-called “church of schools” for hundreds of years. This means that even between WWI and WWII it owned more schools than churches. The number of Reformed schools is significant even today. Sándor Karácsony claims that only Reformed people and communities are able to maintain Reformed schools by people who “are ready to serve and sacrifice themselves” for this cause (Karácsony, Sándor: A magyarok Istene. Széphalom Könyvműhely, Budapest 2004, 172).

Calvin wished to change the structure o f his first catechism (1537/1538), which explained the Ten Commandments before the Apostles’ Cred. Having recognised that his first catechism was too difficult for children, Calvin rewrote his text. He arranged the Geneva Catechism (1542) in questions and answers in an effort to simplify doctrinal complexities. His second Catechism displaced all other Reformed catechisms until 1563, the year when the Heidelberg Catechism appeared. In 1563 the bishop o f Debrecen, Péter Méliusz, translated the Confession o f Geneva into Hungarian. The text was also translated into Italian (1551 and 1556), Spanish (1550), English (1556), German, Dutch, Greek and Hebrew. The second Hungarian translation was made by István Zilahi in 1695 and was edited by Miklós Misztótfalusi Kis. Finally, in 1907 Sándor Czeglédy prepared a new translation o f its text. The La maniere d ’interroger les enfants qu’on veut recevoir a la Cene de notre Seigneur Jésus Christ and Das Genfer Konfirmationsformular von 1553 are very important catechetical instruments.

The writings of Kálmán Sass (1904–1958) have never been systematically collected or studied. The Securitate (Romanian Secret Police) confiscated all of the writings of Kálmán Sass. For 30 years it was not even allowed to quote him, because the Romanian State censurate connected his works to the 1956 anti.Communist Revolution in Hungary. After his execution all properties of Sass were confiscated by the Romanian State. His family was deported and confined to house arrest (“domiciliu obligatoriu”) in Olaru. They were banished from the Romanian Partium far away to the Bărăgan. Kálmán Sass completed his theological studies at the universities of Kolozsvár (Cluj,Romania) and Basel (Switzerland). He left behind important writings on church history, Old Testament, pedagogy and cathechetics, confessions, as well as studies on political theology.The fate of Kálmán Sass and his writings illustrates well the typical history of (reverend)martyrs in Romania during the atheistic regime until 1989.

This sermon of the famous professor, based on the text of John 14:1, is hardly familiar for readers of Hungarian theological literature. However, it is known that a Hungarian summary was made at the time the sermon was held, and once published, an exact translation of the German text was made. Our aim is to review Barth’s visit to Oradea (Nagyvárad) on 7–8 October 1936, to revisit the above mentioned sermon, as well as the short interview with Barth that was published in one of the local newspapers at that time. This interview reflects Barth’s prophetic vision: Bolshevism and fascism must retreat at the sight of Christian faith. There is no trace of this conversation in the Barth-bibliographies, although this interview is still crucial,even after 78 years.

Anläßlich des 450. Jubiläums des Heidelberger Katechismus schreiben wir über den Katechetischen Hausschatz. Das deutsche Original, dessen Verfasser Christoph Staehelin war,wurde 1724 in Basel herausgegeben. Der Übersetzer Ferenc Tatai Csirke, der spätere Bischof von Debrecen, hat das Werk wahrscheinlich während seines Auslandsstudiums in Bern kennen- und schätzen gelernt. Sein Name wird allerdings in keiner der zwei Ausgaben genannt (Erstausgabe: 1752, Kolozsvár – Klausenburg und 1805 in Pest undPozsony – Pressburg), weil es in der Zeit der Gegenreformation nicht ratsam war, die Autorenschaft preiszugeben. Die Zulassung stammt sogar von János Lukács Borosnyai,dem reformierten Superintendenten von Siebenbürgen. Er empfiehlt es als das beste Lehrbuch zur Ausübung der Pietät. Nach ihm hätten auch die Autoren des Heidelberger Katechismus keine bessere Auslegung bieten können. Seit der Generalsynode zu Klausenburg 1774 ist er fester Teil der Liturgie geworden: während der nachmittäglichen Katechismus gottesdienste wurden Ausschnitte aus ihm vorgelesen.

The martyr pastor Kálmán Sass was executed by the Romanian state authorities at the Gherla/Szamosújvár prison on the 2nd of December 1958. “His main misdeed” was sympathising with the ideals of the Hungarian revolution of 1956. His wife, nee Mária Tőkés (September 27th 1913 – May 19th 2004), was deported from the parish of Valea Lui Mihai (Érmihályfalva) with their children to a village called Olaru. All their belongings were confiscated; their two older sons were imprisoned for a few years. It was only after 7 years that the family was informed about the execution of the father and husband. It was forbidden to even mention his name in Romania until 1989. In this study we have made an attempt to collect the biographical data of the Sass family and to portray the heroic struggle of Mrs. Mária Sass-Tőkés to keep her faith and to sustain her family in these miserable and trying times.

Nach einem Vierteljahrhundert seit den gesellschaftlich-politischen Umwälzungen Ost- Mittel-Europas im Jahre 1989 sind die ungarischsprachigen reformierten Kirchen der Region immer noch vor die Frage gestellt: Mit welchen weitreichenden Konsequenzen ist zu rechnen, wenn die Verantwortung für die Geschichte und für die moralisch-sittliche Schuld erwähnt wird? Eine Reduktion der Schuldfrage auf die Feststellung, dass Kirchenleitende, Pfarrerinnen und Pfarrer bzw. kirchliche Mitarbeiter zu ihren persönlichen Taten (d.h. geheime Zusammenarbeit mit der Staatsmacht) und Versäumnissen stehen sollten, wird an sich der Sache nicht gerecht. Einerseits wird in dieser Studie gezeigt, warum eine solche Zusammenarbeit mit Repressionsorganen eines totalitären Staats als theologisch absurd und damit als Schuld zu betrachten sei. Andererseits wird betont, dass Versagen und Schuld nicht nur dort zu finden sind, wo man aus Furcht und Angst vor repressiven Maßnahmen oder aus erhofftem Eigennutz auf Protest, Fürsprache für Entrechtete, auf Kritik am politischen Regime oder an den eigenen kirchenpolitischen Kompromissen verzichtete, sondern auch dort, wo man die gesellschaftliche Realität verengt wahrnahm und auf eine theologisch-kritische Analyse dieser Wirklichkeit verzichtete. Verantwortlich sind ein Christ und die Kirche nicht nur für ihre Taten, sondern auch für ihre Sicht der Wirklichkeit, ja für ihre Theologie. Als Folge dieser theologischen Orientierungskrise blieb für die Kirche entweder eine unkritische Bejahung bzw. Begeisterung für das politischgesellschaftliche Sein der Wirklichkeit oder eine Reihe von politisch-ethischen und theologischen Zugeständnissen, um eventuell Schlimmerem vorzubeugen. Dieser Zusammenhang von anscheinend harmlosen Zugeständnissen, Kompromissen oder Verzichten auf theologische Deutungen der Wirklichkeit – ganz zu schweigen vom Mangel an gelebter Solidarität – hat zur persönlichen Schuldverstrickung des Einzelnen geführt. Nach der systemtheoretischen bzw. sozial-theologischen Darstellung der Schuld in der Vergangenheit bietet die Studie schließlich einige Kriterien für einen adäquaten Umgang mit der Vergangenheit im kirchlichen und gesellschaftlichen Raum: Die ethische Dimension des Aufarbeitungsprozesses, die Förderung einer Kultur des Mitleidens, die zwangsfreie Ermöglichung der Erinnerung und die Komplementarität der politisch-rechtlichen und religiös-moralischen Dimensionen der Versöhnung sollten dafür sorgen, dass nicht weitere Verletzungen (als „zweite oder dritte Schuld”) das Miteinander der Generationen trüben, sondern dass ein freies, friedliches und der historischen Wahrheit verpflichtetes Zusammenleben ermöglicht wird.

This study discusses the connections between Kálmán Sass (1904–1958) and the Welti family during the communism in Romania. Kálmán Sass served as a Reformed pastor in Mezőtelegd (1933–1936) and Érmihályfalva (1936–1957). The recently discovered autobiography of Sass reveals the new circumstances from 1942 onwards, and helps to rethink misinterpreted turns in the life and oeuvre of the martyr pastor. During the communist dictatorship in Romania his books and essays were withdrawn from libraries, his name was not even allowed to be mentioned. The bibliography in this study includes various articles of Sass, which disclose his theological and political thinking as a representative of a generation that had had the opportunity to study in Basel, Strasburg and Zürich. The show trial of Kálmán Sass and other anti-communists throughout Partium, following the 1956 Revolution of Hungary is elaborated upon. Sass was executed at Szamosújvár (Gherla, Romania) on December 2, 1958. He has never been rehabilitated. Historian Zoltán Tófalvi concludes: “Of the assassinations, atrocities and wholesale reprisals – ordered by the communist party after the Second World War – we have only piecemeal knowledge in which there are large gaps even now. Many do not even believe that the dictatorship’s executioners carried all this out with such brutality and sadistic pleasure”. The Welti family in Basel and the theological relations in Switzerland between the two world wars were of great importance. In the famous book of Vilmos Balaskó, Life under the ground, we find some information about the Welti family. The discovery of the notebook of Bertha Welti provides us with new and valuable information regarding the church’s history in Eastern Europe.