# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S375
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran Church in Hungary. 375

...is being formed into a solid organism, whereby, naturally, the possibility of misusing the church as a tool of their selfish, political tendencies — as was, alas, formerly the case — is taken from them.

The Reformed Church of Hungary and the Lutheran congregations among the Magyars have therefore declared themselves altogether against the patent; the Lutheran parish congregations, however, among the Slovaks, and among the Germans not infected by Magyar fanaticism, have already, for the most part, organized themselves according to the decree of the imperial-royal Ministry of Worship and Instruction of 2 September 1859 (which itself rests on the basis of that imperial patent).

The Reformed, and the Lutherans who ally themselves with them, rejected the patent, as they say, for this reason: that it did not proceed from the church but was imposed (octroyed) by the government; and they therefore demand, first of all, a synod, through which the church would then organize itself. But apart from the fact that at such a synod wild anarchism would still gain the upper hand, so that nothing good for our Lutheran church as such could be expected from the resolutions passed at such a synod — we must not forget that the imperial patent is precisely the settlement of the last synodal proceedings of the year 1791. That the Emperor is entitled to take this step is made plain to us by §4 of the gloriously famous statute of the year 1791. And so the said patent in no way violates the autonomy of our Hungarian-Lutheran church. It gives us, rather, a provisional church constitution. The definitive shaping of the church order, however, is to come about, according to §55 of the patent, by way of church legislation, and it is precisely the next synod that holds this in prospect.

All churchly-minded Lutheran men of Hungary are firmly convinced that, precisely on the basis of this patent, our Hungarian-Lutheran church will attain so secure a form that it will henceforth be protected from all dangers of revolution and other upheavals, freed from subjection to the enlightenment-mongers and from the anarchy of the unchurchly nobility — indeed, that an end will be put to the confounding of faiths, and that even the Concordat of 18 August 1855 will be rendered of no effect.

If we now cast a further glance at the movements which the said patent has called forth, we learn that those addicted to Magyarization have shunned no means to prevent the entry of this patent among the believing Lutheran people. Even the Roman Catholic nobles and magnates have taken part in demonstrations against the patent.

If we are to tell the truth at all, we must not conceal that among the clergy and teachers of our Lutheran church too there are many hirelings to be found, who, far removed from a right consciousness