The issue of unity should be present more and more sturdily in our mind-set. Without that, the service of the Reformed Church is inconceivable.” – highlighted in the overall retrospective of the last ten years’ reformed cooperation in the Carpathian Basin - reported on the General Convent’s tenth, and the establishment of the Hungarian Reformed Church’s fifth anniversary – Zoltán Tarr, General Secretary of the RCH on the first day of the Synod’s cycle closing session on 12th of November.
Zoltán Tarr mentioned, that even two anniversaries give reasons for commemoration, because the General Convent started its work ten years ago, and five years ago the Constituting Synod adjudged the establishment of the Hungarian Reformed Church.
The Synod General Secretary commemorated the intention for unit in the last one and a half decade after the regime change. First it mentioned the resolution of the Hungarian Synod of 1992, that highlighted the importance of 1881 Synod of Debrecen, the begetter of the unit of the church districts, which took a stand on the issue of „the Hungarian Reformed Synod’s unit continual reorganization. The head of the Synod Office commemorated the World Communion of Reformed Churches - which is functioning as an organization - and the formation of the Consultative Synod of Hungarian Reformed Churches.
The rewards of the remaining as a unit.
For the whole Hungarian nation the reformed cooperation is a good role model – highlighted Sándor Fábián Zán. The Subcarpathian Bishop highlighted in his comment: “the growing burdens of the past few years would have been unbearable for us, if we were alone. According to him, the Subcarpathian Hungarian Reformed community and its congregations and institutions have remained, because the reformed unit had the opportunity for surviving”. Correlation with this, Bishop Fábián highlighted the work of the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid, the Carpathian-Basin Reformed Education Foundation and the Carpathian-Basin Reformed Pastor Support Fund. “Thank you that you are with us, thank you for your help, prayers, and that in the future we can count on this community.” – said the bishop.
The unit is in the progress of this process was a significant step
The Carpathian-Basin Hungarian Reformed churches, Church Districts, leaders of Church Districts and the advisory boards’ annual sessions meant a significant step towards the progress of the unit’s process.
The General Convent’s monthly seating presidency – consisting the bishops and curators - has become the relationship manager of the regular cooperation between churches and church districts.
The 2005 Synod’s decision was an important step of the Hungarian Reformed unit process, which pronounced every Hungarian Reformed as the member of the Hungarian Reformed Church (HRC), anywhere in the world.
In the same year the General Convent laid down in the closing statement of the annual meeting, that the unit of the Hungarian Reformed Church will be created again, and in 2006 the HRC Synod stated on the occasion of the 1881 Debrecen Synod’s 125th anniversary, that „it will be committed not only to the preservation and maintenance of spiritual unit but also to the visible unit work of the church organization.”
The Constituting Synod of the Hungarian Reformed Church was congregated on 22 May 2009 in Debrecen. „Here, neither in secular nor in canonical sense, new entity was not created, but the Carpathian-Basin Reformed Churches created Synod community” – highlighted Zoltán Tarr, who added: the Slovakian and Croatian churches had the opportunity for the accession to the Hungarian Reformed Church only in 2011 and in 2013, which not only communities of the Carpathian-Basin are parts of. In the past the American Hungarian Reformed Church has also joined, and so has the Canadian and the Luxembourgian Hungarian Reformed has expressed their intentions.
Guests across borders and the diaspora
In the Synod meeting of the cycle closing participates Bishop Lajos Csáti Szabó (Croatia Reformed Christian Calvinist Church), Bishop Sándor Fábián, Zán and Lay President Béla Nagy (Transcarpathian Reformed Church), Bishop Béla Halász, Lay President, Imre Hallgató (Serbian Reformed Christian Church) and Rev. Tamás Bódis and Church President Géza Kócán (Slovenian Reformed Christian Church), President Rev. Zoltán Vass, (Canadian Hungarian Reformed Pastoral and Presbyterian Association), Rev. Csaba Dézsi (Hungarian Reformed Church in Australia) and President Rev. Pál Molnár-Veress (Western European Association of Hungarian Protestant Churches).
Zoltán Tarr said: both at regional and organizational levels, the process is embodied in the five years ago constitutionally declared unit, but the most important is the preparing common liturgy and common hymnal, which are expressions of spiritual unity. But a significant event was the Heidelberg Catechism and the common recompiling of Institution, moreover an important aim is to create a standard pastor educational system, as well as the creation and joint preparation for the reformation of a half millennium anniversary of the joint electoral law and litigation.
After the report, the Synod confirmed the commitment of the Hungarian Reformed Church community in the decision and continue to do all for the organizational and spiritual unit.
Sándor Kiss
translated by Virág Sőre
Look at the presentation about the Cooperation in the Carpatian Basin, shown at the Synod's session on 12th of November.