Journal index

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.

Count Miklós Bánffy (1873—1950) writer, politician, actor, the organizer of cultural life in Transylvania between the two World Wars, was the principle overseer of the Transylvania Reformed Church District between 1928—1948. After the Second World War, in 1949, he obtained the permission to travel to his wife in Hungary. He died on July 6, 1950 in Budapest. The funeral speech was held by bishop László Ravasz. His remains were transported from the cemetery of Budapest, Farkasrét, to the family crypt at the Házsongárd cemetery of Kolozsvár (Cluj) in 1976. His place of burial received a first memorial plaque in 2000. Another plaque was placed inside the crypt in front of his urn in 2014.

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).