"Those present in the meeting, having listened to reports from participants and experienced recent developments in public life, found that the theme of the Founding Congress of the World Council of Churches in 1948 – the chaos of the world and the order of God – is yet again relevant. This chaos is yelling all around us today," reads the statement of the Presidium of the Reformed Church in Hungary (RCH), issued after the national meeting of deans and elders held on 10 April, with the participation of the leadership of the RCH's twenty-seven presbyteries, as well as the bishops and lay presidents of its four church districts.
This chaos has been present in cemetery vandalism in both Csenger and Füzesgyarmat, continues the statement, conveying the solidarity of the deans and elders to the families whose graves have been damaged. The participants also expressed their gratitude to the congregations involved for their cooperation in handling the ensuing tension. In order to alleviate the damage done, the Trans-Tisza Reformed Church District offered 1 million Hungarian Forints, while the Hungarian Reformed Church Aid (HRCA) gave a contribution of 500,000 Forints.
Another sign of the chaos of the world, according to the meeting of deans and elders, is the statement issued by Rev. Loránt Hegedűs Jr., Reformed pastor of Budapest-Szabadság Square, calling for an anti-Zionist rally. This statement and the action it calls for are in sharp contradiction with the repeated and clear resolutions adopted by the Synod of the RCH. Those present in the meeting found this phenomenon to be unsettling and harmful to the whole country. The meeting, in agreement with those concerned and present, asked the Budapest-North Reformed Presbytery, which is the competent authority, to put this issue on its agenda. The statement goes on to say that the participants of the meeting were relieved to hear that competent Hungarian authorities decided to ban a motorcycle demonstration with the slogan "Give Gas" that was scheduled for April 21 and would have taken place at the same time as the Holocaust memorial march in Budapest that commemorates our Jewish brothers and sisters who were taken to extermination camps. The leaders of the RCH hope that equally firm action will be taken for another rally scheduled to take place in front of the Reformed church of Budapest-Szabadság Square during the World Jewish Congress (WJC) on 4 May.
Hegedűs issued his statement on Tuesday 9 April wherein he announced an "Anti-Bolshevist and anti-Zionist rally" in Budapest on 4 May, the same date as the general meeting of the WJC in Budapest. According to the statement, Hegedűs demanded that the WJC condemn the Judeo-Bolshevik, anti-Christian and anti-Hungarian terror of 1919 and post-1945, its Jewish leaders, such as Béla Kun, Szamuely, the whole bunch of vile communist leaders, Péter Gábor, Rákosi, Gerő, Farkas, Révay, and the cruel "hatchet men" of 60 Andrássy Street.
Translated by: Erzsébet Bölcskei