László Medgyessy
At the Great Divide
The Subcarpathian Reformed Church
[...]
Subcarpathia or Transcarpathia, also called Ruthenia1 and Carpatho-Ukraine,2 was the westernmost territory acquired by the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War.3 The name Transcarpathia was introduced only in the Soviet period. It reflects the view from Moscow, since this land lies beyond (trans) the Carpathian mountains. The indigenous populace consider themselves living inside the Danubian Basin, under the Carpathians, hence Subcarpathia. This self-designation of being Subcarpathians reflects a political stance on the part of the indigenious population against the Soviet annexation. The location of this small land (4,886 square miles) was of unique strategic importance in providing not only easy access to the former satellite states of the now defunct Soviet Empire (bordering with Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania), but it was also a potential spearhead toward the NATO countries.4
Following the First World War, the Kingdom of Hungary was dismembered by the Trianon Peace Treaty in 1920, and the northeastern arch of the Carpathian mountains was given to the newly created Czechoslovak Republic. This included the lands populated by Slovaks and Ruthenians, along with approximately one million Hungarians.5 Available population figures show that in 1930 in Subcarpathia, then the easternmost province of inter-war Czechoslovakia, out of 740,000 inhabitants 61 per cent were Ruthenians, 17 per cent Hungarians, and the others Jews, Germans and Slovaks.6 Presently the number of Hungarians are estimated to be over 200,000. The Hungarians inhabit the fertile flat land along the Tisza river on the present Hungarian border, while the Ruthenians live on the mountainous rugged eastern areas.
Subcarpathia had little value to the Soviet Union other than being a strategic outpost, but its location made it one of the most desired pieces of real estate in Eastern Europe. For a thousand years, up to the end of the First World War, it was an integral part of the Kingdom of Hungary; in the past seventy years it was declared an independent republic twice, an autonomous territory three times, lost and gained land on numerous occasions, and it changed sovereignty four times. Today, under the name of Carpatho-Ukraine, it is a district of the free and sovereign Ukrainian Republic. There is one profound difference between how Subcarpathia and other territories of the Soviet Union were acquired by Stalin. From the North Sea to the Black Sea lands were taken by military power against the will of sovereign neighbours, this territory, however, was an exception. In December, 1941, Eduard Beneš, prime minister of Czechoslovakia in exile, visited Moscow and voluntarily offered Subcarpathia to Stalin after the successful conclusion of the war, to demonstrate traditional Czech friendship for the Russians, and to fulfill longstanding pan-Slavic aspirations which had assigned this area to Russia since the middle of the 19th century.7 A fact of the political life of Eastern Europe is that territorial changes have occurred frequently without any consultation with the population involved, and the people of Subcarpathia, too, were no exception.8
Historically in this part of the world, national identity and religious affiliation are very strongly linked. The fusion of these two powerful forces has helped even small ethnic groups to survive centuries of minority status, including periodic persecution. In multi-ethnic, heterogeneous Subcarpathia, the Slavic Ruthenes belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Slovaks are Roman Catholics. The Germans, and especially the Hungarians, live in the Reformation tradition. Due to the strong influence of the Reformation in this area, the majority of Hungarians here today belong to the Transcarpathian Reformed Church, which, according to the statistics of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, had 80,000 members in 1980, in 86 congregations, under the ministration of some 30 pastors.9 Since the liberal new political climate in Ukraine, however, the latest estimated number for the Hungarian Reformed congregation has grown suddenly to 140,000.
In 1920, when Czechoslovakia was drawn onto the map of Europe, it became impossible for the Reformed congregations, both in Slovakia and in Subcarpathia, to continue their centuries-old uninterrupted membership in the Hungarian Reformed Church. They were forced, by historic circumstances, either to create an independent collective life or to suffer fragmentation. With the help of Reformed Churches in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Scotland, the Hungarian Reformed congregations were able to form a new Church, the Reformed Church of Slovakia; they not only maintained a fully accredited Theological Seminary in Losonc, but numerous schools, a rest home and an orphanage.10 The upheavals caused by the length and attrition of the First World War, the new political and territorial arrangements, the pauperization of the populations by skyrocketing inflation, led to a deep spiritual crisis which facilitated the spread of sects and pseudo-religions at the expense of the traditional Churches. In order to neutralize such negative forces in the Reformed Churches of Subcarpathia (then still part of Czechoslovakia) a spiritual revival movement emerged among the ministers, the Sunrise Fellowship Circle. This group, with its unconventional methods not only vitalized church life but also polarized some theologically conservative congregations.11
In 1938 the first Vienna Award returned the Hungarian inhabited regions of Czechoslovakia to Hungary, and the Reformed congregations of Subcarpathia immediately re-joined the Hungarian Reformed Church. In 1939 the entire region reverted to Hungarian sovereignty, which lasted until the conclusion of the Second World War. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1946 both the Ruthenian and Hungarian inhabited lands of Subcarpathia were transferred to the Soviet Union, under the 1941 agreement between Prime Minister Eduard Beneš and Stalin. As the Hungarian Army was forced to retreat before the irresistible westward movement of the Red Army into Eastern Europe, the ensuing panic among the civilian population decimated the membership of the Reformed congregations. In Subcarpathia some 40 ministers out of 100 abandoned their flocks and fled to the West.
It was in the autumn of 1944 that the Soviet Army invaded Subcarpathia. Immediately, the iron fist of the Communist-atheistic regime of Stalin descended on the hapless land. The entire male population, between the ages of 18 and 50, was taken off for "malenky robot" ("little work", promised to last only three days); they were transported to the infamous Siberian labour camps, known in the West, since Solzhenitsyn, as the Gulag Archipelago. The journey itself, and the subsequent years in these death camps, caused staggering losses in human life as the result of starvation, cold, neglect, illness, and overwork. Those who returned have been marked for life by this experience. (Only recently, in the era of perestroika, has the Soviet leadership published estimates that some 40,000 persons from Subcarpathia perished in the ordeal.) Those who were left behind also experienced the inhumanity of the Soviet system. In the process of socializing all productive private assets, according to the blueprints of Marxist theory, an entire class of people called kulaks had to be eliminated. Daily life turned into an unbearable burden for most. Fear, cruelty, a false politization of life, poverty, and state sponsored terrorism became the way of life in Subcarpathia.
The Reformed Church had three ministers who fell victim to this early period of Soviet rule. Of the much reduced active pastoral roll, Imre Narancsik from Nagymuzsaj, Sándor Balogh from Eszény, and Jenő Szutor from Beregszász were arrested and transported to labour camps, from where they never returned. Amid fear and trepidation, the Sunrise Fellowship Circle was still active among ministers. It was this group that tried to restart congregational life, youth work, Bible schools, and home worship services, to counter the newly evolving atheistic system, which tried early (1945) to enlist the tacit assistance of ministers in handicapping church life. In these critical times a major administrative handicap also affected the life of the congregations. Their bishop, who administered them from Debrecen, was separated by the new Hungarian and Soviet border and was unable to provide any sort of leadership. Only three deans were available, (Gyula Bari, Béla Gencsi and Sándor Lajos) and it was they who made the first official contacts with the Soviet administration.
The original intention of Soviet religious policy had been to eradicate the Hungarian Reformed Churches by merging them with the loyal, time-tested, and officially registered Moscow Baptist Alliance. All reformed ministers were called together to Bátyu, where a meeting was arranged with the Baptist leadership. The rejection of this plan by the ministers was near unanimous. They were afraid that such a union would give legal access to their congregations, not only to the Baptists, but to all other minor and extremist sects which were forced into this alliance by the state. They decided that they would register with the Soviet officials as an independent denomination and would assume full responsibility for their own life.12 They had to accept the new name of Transcarpathia in the designation of the their Church so as not to offend Soviet sensibilities and to avoid accusations that they fostered separatism. The new body, the Transcarpathian Reformed Church, also elected its first bishop, The Rev. Béla Gencsi, who governed the Church betwen 1945-1977. Like other Hungarian Reformed Churches, this too was organized as a synod-presbytery system, but here the Episcopal Council held the highest authority, since the Church was unable to hold meetings of the synod. The "Episcopal Council thus represents both the presbytery and the synod".13 It has six members and is chaired by the bishop.
In 1947, due to the worsening situation, members of the Sunrise Fellowship Circle felt compelled to petition Generalissimo Stalin for relief and understanding. Today, the content of the petition can be discerned with accuracy from those who signed the letter and are still alive. It tried to appeal to the conscience of the Soviet leader, reminding him that he was only a tool in the hands of God and warned him that he was responsible for what happened to the people. Such a letter to the Communist dictator was not inappropriate, he was well able to understand the content, given that he had once wished to become an Eastern Orthodox priest and had attended the Theological Seminary of Tiflis in Georgia. The reaction of the authorities was swift. In this second wave of arrest ten ministers were taken to labour camps. After two months of interrogation, Barna Horkay, József Zimányi, Zsigmond Simon, Gyula Fekete, József Pázsit, István Györke, István Asszonyi, Béla Huszti, Zoltán Kovács and Lajos Gulácsy were charged with undermining Soviet authority, misleading people, spreading anti-Soviet propaganda among the young, obstructing the building of Socialism, and being the enemies of the great Soviet people. Freedom to the victims of this wave of arrest came only in 1956. There was a third wave of arrests when Reformed pastors were accused of sabotaging the establishments of agricultural communes (the kolhkozes). In 1950 Pál Forgon, Pál Gönczi, József Zsurki, József Vass and Dániel Tarczi were sent to Siberia for three to five years and at home, István Papp and József Csik were suspended from the ministry.
To understand Soviet behaviour one must turn to Marxist-Leninist ideology, which provided the philosophical foundation of the Soviet Union. One of the assumptions of this ideology is the superiority of matter over other aspects of reality. Faith in a transcendent God could not be permitted, since it was considered to be the creation of previous, primitive social conditions. Discarded as inappropriate in the higher level of social consciousness, it had to be abandoned in building the perfect egalitarian society, Communism. Churches, therefore, were very high on the list of enemies of the atheistic state, and an ideological war was declared against them, and this was often waged with administrative means. Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Union turned into a pseudo-religion, eventually trying to replace all God-centred religions with its own atheistic history, dogmas, rituals and customs. Militant atheism permeated Soviet policy decisions, which tried to suffocate religious activities.
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NOTES
1 Aldo, Dami: La Ruthenie Subcarpathique. Geneva-Annemasse, Les Edition du Mont-Blanc SA. 1935. Back
2 Stefan, Augustine: From Carpatho-Ruthenia to Carpatho-Ukraine. New York, Carpathian Star Pub. 1954. Back
3 Markus, Vasyl: L'Incorporation de l'Ukraine Subcarpathique a l'Ukraine Sovietique 1944-1945. Louvain, Centre Ukrainien d'Etudes en Belgique, 1956. Back
4 Hokky, J. Charles: Ruthenia: Spearhead To-ward the West. Cainesville, Florida. Danubian Research Center, 1966. Back
5 Deak, Francis: Hungary at the Paris Peace Con-ference. New York, Columbia University Press, 1942. Back
6 See, Aldo Dami, op.cit. p. 75. Back
7 Medyesy, Laslo, Morency: Soviet Territorial Expansion in Eastern Europe 1945. A Case Study on Ruthenia. Unpublished M.A. Dissertation in International Relations. Chicago, The University of Chicago, 1970. Back
8 Ripka, Hubert: Czechoslovakia Enslaved: The Study of the Communist Coup d'Etat. London, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1950, pp. 11-21. Back
9 Handbook of Member Churches, World Al-liance of Reformed Churches, Geneva, 1989, p. 90. Back
10 Gulácsy, Lajos: A Kárpátaljai Egyház Története (History of the Subcarpathian Church) Unpublished, Munkács, 1990. Back
11 loc.cit. p. 1. Back
12 loc.cit. p. 3. Back
13 Bishop Pál Forgon: The Subcarpathian Re-formed Church. Conference of the Minority Central and East European Churches of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Kecskemét, 1986, p. 89. Back
Dr László Medgyessy
has been based in the United States since the mid-sixties. He has taught at the Universities of Indiana, Connecticut and Yale and is at present a visiting professor at the Károli Gáspár Calvinist University in Budapest and the Kálvin János Theological Academy in Révkomárom (Komarno), Slovakia.
