Reformed Church in Hungary

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 Census 2001, 15.9 % of the population profess the country to the Reformed faith.

History

The Reformed Church in Hungary was established in 1567 at the Synod of Debrecen by 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 to enforce religious freedom for Hungary each for a short time, by the Habsburgs. But soon the Hungarian Reformed were again violently suppressed. 1849 supported the reformed Bishop of Debrecen open the Hungarian freedom fighter Lajos Kossuth. Only after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 it came to a relative religious freedom in Hungary. In 1891, the Reformed Church was a church constitution in Hungary. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon of 1920 and the ensuing loss of territory of Hungary lost the Reformed Church in Hungary, about half of its members - partly to existing churches like the Lutheran Churches in Austria newly established (in the case of the church in Oberwart ) and partly to churches as the Reformed Church in Transcarpathia. During the German occupation in the Second World War, the church organization " Good Shepherd" for the life of persecution began. In the communist era, the state religious education were abolished and prohibited the church associations. For ecclesiastical concerns, the State Office for Church Affairs was responsible. After 1989, the Iron Curtain had fallen, in 1990 a law on freedom of conscience and religion was adopted.

Organization

The church is divided into 1200 municipalities in 27 senior councils (Hungarian egyházmegye ) in four church dioceses (Hungarian egyházkerület ). The four Parish churches are the Church Sprengel this side of the river Tisza with its headquarters in Miskolc, the parish system beyond the Tisza based in Debrecen, the parish system on the Danube is located in Budapest and the Transdanubian Church diocese based in Veszprém. The church parishes is in each case before a bishop (Hungarian Püspök ). The title of bishop is used in other reformed churches little.

The Reformed Church in Hungary is a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe and the World Council of Churches. There are Hungarian-speaking Calvinist churches that are connected in the World Federation of the Hungarian Reformed Church and in the Consultative Synod of the Hungarian Reformed with the Reformed Church in Hungary in several other countries.

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