Reformed Church in Hungary

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Great Reformed Church Debrecen

The Reformed Church in Hungary ( Hungarian : Magyarországi Református Egyház ) is the national Reformed Church of Hungary and the second largest religious community in Hungary . According to the 2001 census, 15.9% of the country's population profess the Reformed faith.

history

The Reformed Church in Hungary came into being at the Synod of Debrecen in 1567 through the adoption of the Second Helvetic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism . The reformed princes Stephan Bocskai , Gábor Bethlen and George I Rákóczi succeeded in the course of the first half of the 17th century, each for a short time, from the Habsburgs , the freedom of religion to force for Hungary. But soon the Hungarian Reformed were again violently suppressed. In 1849 the Reformed Bishop of Debrecen openly supported the Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth . Only after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 did relative freedom of religion return to Hungary. In 1891 the Reformed Church in Hungary received a constitution . As a result of the Trianon Treaty of 1920 and the associated loss of territory in Hungary, the Reformed Church in Hungary lost around half of its members - partly to existing churches such as the Evangelical Church HB in Austria (in the case of the parish in Oberwart ) and partly to newly founded churches Churches like the Reformed Church in Transcarpathia . During the German occupation in World War II , the church organization “Good Shepherd” campaigned for the lives of those persecuted. During the communist era, state religious education was abolished and church associations were banned. The State Office for Church Affairs was responsible for church affairs. After the Iron Curtain fell in 1989 , a law on freedom of religion and conscience was passed in 1990.

organization

The church is in 1200 communities in 27 senior councils (Hungarian egyházmegye ) in four church parishes (Hungarian egyházkerület ) divided. The four church districts are the church district on this side of the Tisza with its seat in Miskolc , the church district on the other side of the Tisza with its seat in Debrecen , the church district on the Danube with its seat in Budapest and the Trans- Danubian church district with its seat in Veszprém . A bishop (in Hungarian püspök ) heads each church parish . The title of bishop is not very widespread in other Reformed churches.

The Reformed Church in Hungary is a member of the World Community of Reformed Churches , the Community of Evangelical Churches in Europe and the World Council of Churches . In several other countries there are Hungarian-speaking Reformed churches that are linked to the Reformed Church in Hungary in the World Federation of Hungarian Reformed and in the Consultative Synod of the Hungarian Reformed.

See also

literature

  • Zoltán Balog : Employee of the Zeitgeist? The debate about the contemporary as a criterion of church action and the criteria of theological decisions in the Reformed Church of Hungary 1967–1992. A documentation . Edited by Gerhard Sauter . Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-631-31636-4
  • Balázs Dercsényi: Reformed Churches in Hungary . Translated by Marianne Látki. Hegyi & Társa, Budapest 1992, ISBN 963-7592-14-8
  • Graeme Murdock: Calvinism on the frontier 1600–1660: international Calvinism and the Reformed Church in Hungary and Transylvania . Clarendon Press, Oxford 2000, ISBN 0-19-820859-6
  • Pál Ács: Study and translation of the Bible in Hungary at the time of the Reformation (1540–1640) ; in: Alberto Melloni: Martin Luther: Christ Between Reforms and Modernity (1517-2017) , Walter de Gruyter, 2017, ISBN 978-3-11049825-7 ( PDF )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.nepszamlalas.hu/eng/volumes/26/tables/load1_1.html , accessed on October 21, 2008