# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S376
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Lutheran Church in Hungary. 376

...of a right consciousness of the nature and importance of their calling, and of standing firm in faith, allow themselves, on the contrary, to be used as tools for carrying out the intrigue-ridden designs of Magyarism — or rather let themselves be misused in their position. And we must, in this respect, entirely agree with Prof. Dr. Hengstenberg, who says (Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, No. 8, 1860) that the congregations in Hungary are, comparatively speaking, better than the clergy.

Yet it would be a great wrong to wish to assert this of all the clergy of our Hungarian-Lutheran church. There are still, thank God, a considerable number of pastors, as well as teachers, of our church, who prove themselves faithful shepherds of the flock entrusted to them, who, seized by the truth of Christianity and standing firm in faith in our Lord and Savior, recognize with clear insight what the Lutheran Church of Hungary lacks; who, far from selfish tendencies and national perversities, recognizing the well-meaning intent of the said patent, accepted it with joy and thanks, and have already, in consistent fashion, carried through the organization of their parish congregations.

Since the opposition party now saw that it was not able, through its intrigues within our Lutheran church, to prevent the introduction of the patent, its leaders betook themselves to Vienna at the end of January of this year. The audience which the two Hungarian magnates, von Vay and von Pronay, then received from the Emperor encouraged these opponents to new and violent agitations, which the aristocrats, proceeding from Pest, directed in every possible way against our Lutheran people, in all places where the patent has been accepted and the congregations have already organized themselves according to the ministerial decree of 2 September 1859, in order to stir it up against the patent. — On 5 February of this year a new decree appeared from the imperial-royal Ministry of Worship, reporting that in the implementation of the patent of 1 September and the ministerial decree of 2 September of last year, every possible consideration would be given to all well-founded wishes of the evangelical fellow believers of both confessions, so that it is accordingly only a matter of the ways by which such wishes may be brought into official negotiation, and led to a satisfactory settlement, even before the convening of the synods. — But the opposition party among us troubled itself no further with the justification of its objections to the patent, but continued its perfidious agitation, in order especially to make the Slavic-Lutheran congregations — who had greeted the patent with such great joy — waver. And this seemed here and there to be succeeding for those people, whereby they prepared new struggles for the faithful confessors of the Lutheran church. The aristocrats, and their followers enthusiastic for Magyar policy, would wish, in this confusion, to hold a synod, so as thereby once more to make our Lutheran church a play-