(Piarist monk and teacher, founder of the Bokor Catholic Basecommunity Network)
As the motto of my lecture I use Tömörkény's short story from 1911 titled "Race and Denomimation". Tömörkény leads an excavation as the director of a museum in Szeged close to a Hungarian-Serbian village. Meanwhile he is talking with the workers, among them the 82 year old Uncle Vaszó.
"Uncle Vaszó: You seem to speak Serbian and still don't speak Serbian. Which is the language you speak?"
As it turned out Tömörkény had learned Bosnian - as a soldier in Bosnia.
"Tömörkény: We were down there for your sake. In order to set the Uniates free from the Turkish oppression. And that's all the thanks for it that so many Serbians are enemies to the Hungarians.
Uncle Vaszó: That's not the case! There are no enemies right here! Here everybody lives in peace. Serbians and Hungarians live next to each other as sheep in the village, ("He ment to say as lambs..." - came from another pit.) as small white tame sheep. We have peace now.
Tömörkény: That's nice ... but in 1948 you could not act as a small white sheep. Because at that time the statue of the Holy Trinity on the market of Zenta was surrounded by the heads of dead Hungarians.
Uncle Vaszó: We were not among those who did that. We lived as small sheep. The priests did that... The Serbian priest went up to the church and preached that Hungarians were coming and going to kill every Serbian. Then the Hungarian priest went up to the church and said that Serbians were approaching and going to kill every Hungarian. And they had been preaching until we had a fight."
To read a new short story - it would be great. A new one where Uncle Vaszó would say: "We almost came to blow when all of a sudden the Serbian priest went up to the church and preached: "Hungarians are the creatures of God as you are, don't do any harm to them since you are Christians too." The Hungarian priest also went up to the church and said: "God created the Serbians and you are from Christ, so let's love them." And they had been preaching until we made peace with each other."
1. The timeliness of the nationality problem
The immediate timeliness of our subject is that nowadays that the Soviet Union has collapsed after a 70 year long dictatorial system, the nationality demands of smaller and larger national minorities living in the territories of the former government - against the power under which they are supposed to live - come up again in the forms of tense situations and bloody fights.
To eliminate these problems the help of the Christian Churches is needed. This is quite understandable since the Founder gathered his thirteen-member community what he called "My Church" to carry out universal love which is also intended to embrace different nations together.
However our question is in the center of our interest not just because of the timeliness mentioned above. Tensions of nations and nationalities are among the reasons creating the numerous heaps of corpses of our human history. They were among the provocative reasons of the two World Wars in this century. During the decades after the War many people in the West believed that the human race had perhaps recovered from this "social sickness" which had caused so many conflicts. But they had to get dissappointed. In the last half century several nations achieved their own independence: Iceland (pop. 185,000), Cyprus (pop. 589,000) and Malta (pop. 330,000). In 1974 at the secret conference of nationalities in Triest the following nations/ ethnic groups expressed their dissatisfaction with the status quo of their own state:
- Great Britain: people from Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Cornwall and Man Islands (pop. 49,000)
- Spain: Catalans, Basques, Galicians
- France: Bretons, Basques, Corsicans, Alsatians
- Italy: Sicilians, Sardinians, Calabrians, people in Piemont, Tyroleans, Slovenians
- The Netherlands: Frisians
- Belgium: Flemings
- Denmark: Norvegians on Faröer Islands (pop. 35,000), Greenlandic Eskimos
- Austria: Croatians, Slovenians
- Switzerland: French people in the Canton of Bern
How much the Third World - getting liberated from the colonization - is effected by nationality tensions is covered by newspapers from time to time. In the last 20 years the dream of cosmopolitanism has turned into an illusion; the dream of those who considered the United States a melting pot which removes ethnic differences. The book of Professor Novak titled "The Rise of the Anmeltable Ethnics" astonished the American way of thinking which seemed to get over these ethnic questions. The author was born in the States as the grandson of two Slovak people emigrating from the territory of the former historical Hungary. All this was reported in the book of Lajos Für which had to wait in press for nine years; it had to wait until the fall of that party state which had not allowed to talk about nationality problems. I quote:
"What I write about is not a short-lived fashion. Those loud beliefs about the American melting pot were destroyed by two sociologists at the same time but independently of Novak's book. They had been examining the behaviour of many ethnic groups in New York for years. In the end they came to a conclusion amazing even for themselves: the role of ethnic relations could not dissappear even in the world of skyscapers. Contrarily, its significance is growing obviously and this growth can be measured using the well-known methods of sociology."
2. The national consciousness of Jesus
The "Traditions" from Béla Hamvas teaches the basic rule of our human life everywhere in different cultures: "Do not do to the others what you would not wish for yourself". Nationality tensions arise from the fact that the nation with the power can do to the other what it would not wish for itself. Majority against minority? Not absolutely. The minority can do the same if it has the power. Only to people of the other nation? Not definitely. It can happen to people of the same nation if there is enough power. "History is the story of class struggles." - said Marx. In case class means not only the social layers different in financial status but also several nations and religions, this sentence from Marx expresses the true reality. This all means that history is such a sad book which is about the story where groups of the human race with different languages and religions did not follow the golden rule above, and tried to get advantageous situations for themselves at other groups' cost.
If we are looking for the reasons for this hardly deniable theorem embedded into our experiences and the reality behind it we need to come to the man who forms these groups with several others. Obviously we have to ask more: Why does the man act this way? Because of his freedom. God loves freely. He wanted to create a being similar to himself in us. But the freedom of his creatures cannot evolve without two principles. Just an exclusively acquiring nature would determine for acquisition. An exclusively giving nature would determine for donation. I can choose only if I have both natures. If I follow the Tradition I don't want to get advantages to the detriment of other people. If I set myself against the Tradition I want to get advantages to the detriment of other groups.
The Kingdom of God preached by Jesus is the product of those who use the freedom above at God's purpose according to the rules of the Tradition. It's trivial that the solution of nationality problems depends on the people using this freedom at God's purpose. This means that we have to be good and these problems - which are due to the fact that we are bad - will come to an end. And in order not to have this truth just on paper but in our life Jesus became a man and founded that thirteen-member community, his own church.
Did Jesus have any ideas beside the above about the nationality problem? It would have been strange if he hadn't have any. The society he lived in was in the misery of nationality conflicts. The way of tax collection yielded poverty and their national culture that is their religion was in danger due to the hellenization and incredulty of the rich collaborating with the Roman Empire. Each honest Jew - zealous - had his sword in the ground of his garden that when the hour of freedom arrives he could put the conquerors to it to get the seized treasures back. Jesus belonged neither to the collaborators nor to the zealous people.
Whom did he belong to? To the people with strong national consciousness. Every highly developed civilization produces a kind of awareness of cosmopolitanism: Ubi bene, ibi patria. This was strange to Jesus. To the Jews of those times too. Even if the Jews living in the Diaspora could not speak their mother tongue, they could hear their language every Sabbath in the synagogue and in any case they considered themselves as members of the national-religious community. This was much more valid in case of a non-Diaspora Jew like Jesus.
Jesus, the Man was a true born Israelite; he, the Son of God chose his own nationality. His Jewish consciousness was based on birth and choice. The basis of his goals to win the whole world was spread in Jewish national surroundings. He didn't go to other nations: "I have been sent only to those lost sheep, the people of Israel." (Matthew 15.24) said to the non-Jewish (Canaanite) woman. He gathered his disciples from the Jews only. His twelve were chosen from Jewish people too. The primary heirs of his Kingdom of God belong to Israel; they constitute the "sons of the Kingdom" (Matthew 8.12). They are the ones to whom he explains the notion of love about embracing all the people in the Sermon on the Mount. First they - the Jews - have to get over the notion of love narrowed down to a group with the same interests. This is that love people of other nations (the pagans) and those collaborating with them (the tax collectors) are capable of too (Matthew 6.46-47).
This kind of national consciousness did not make Jesus blind towards both the sins of his own nation and the virtues of the members of other nations. Only those who accept and practice the notion of love mentioned above can be qualified as gentle (charis) to God. Only those who are perfect like the Heavenly Father who doesn't exclude even sinners from his love (Luke 6.32-36; Matthew 5.48). He delimited himself from any kind of love which is restricted to some people only and therefore excludes others. Even sinners are able to love this way "Even sinners lend to sinners." (Luke 6.34). For Jesus being a Jew is not a privilege but rather a responsibility ... a mission to other nations. That kind of love which can broaden only to the members of the nation is just a collective egoism to Jesus who continued the prophetic traditions of his race in all these. The words of the Baptist cannot be put off by nationality phrases ("Our father is - Abraham!") because God is able to make descendants for Abraham even from stones (Matthew 3.9). Similarly Jesus could not be affected by national consciousness: "If you really were Abraham's children, you would do the same things that he did." (John 8.39). The God of Jesus cannot be possessed by a single group of all mankind. Not even the one Jesus chose and was born into. Only joining with the thoughts and attitude of God can give any status. History is not, but the quality of the performance built from the personal performances of the current generations is a reference basis. He appriciates the non-Jewish officer from Capernaum more than the members of his own nation (Matthew 8.10).
He talks about his Kingdom of God based on the non-Jews causing a universal astonishment in Israel: "I assure you that many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. But those who should be in the Kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness, where they will cry and grind their teeth." (Matthew 8.11-12)
Jesus - though having strong national consciousness - is free from any kind of prejudice towards Israel: the praised officer from Capernaum belongs to the alien nation which occupies the land of the Jews. Similar praises are given to the nations around Israel: people from Tyre and Sidon to the north, from Nineveh to the east, Arabians to the south, who - according to the words of the chiding Christ - show greater sensitivity towards the words of the Lord than the Jews (Matthew 11,21-22; 12.41-42). He even goes further when he states the inhabitants of Sodom better than those of Israel (Matthew 11.24). In the same manner as our poets Kölcsey and Ady did later. Only those with really strong national consciousness can have this voice trying to awake their nations.
Jesus doesn't have any illusions about the future; nation and mass murder are the same things for him: "Countries will fight each other, kingdoms will attack one another." (Matthew 24.7). In connection with this he prophesies the coming perdition of the country's capital: "Not a single stone here will be left in its place, every one of them will be thrown down." (Matthew 24.2). He encourages his disciples to escape from the City - the place of mass murders: "Pray to God that you will not have to run away during the winter or on Sabbath!" (Matthew 24.20). Don't the disciples of Jesus have to be there where the country needs defence - even by sacrificing their lifes - against the army of the enemy country? His notion of love includes the love for the enemies, therefore any kind of murders exclude the enforcement of this love: "Love your enemies ... and you will be the sons of the Most High God. For he is good to the ungrateful an the wicked." (Luke 6.35).
When the Son of God chose the Jewish nation to belong to, he decided to devote his first disciples to the concept which is to solve those mortal tensions which originated from the way of getting advantages for our "class" against other "classes" by any means in the past, it originates from this in the present, and will do so in the future. And he didn't put the fate of his nation on a sword. When it turned out that his mission had failed, that is the contemporary Jews didn't understand him and didn't take over a national and international representation of his Israel concept, he wept over (Luke 19.41) them: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem! You kill the prophets and stone the messengers God has sent you! How many times I wanted to put my arms round all your people, just as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not let me! And so your Temple will be abandoned and empty." (Matthew 23.37-38).
Nevertheless he didn't change his nationality. Although the formal representatives of his nation declared him as balsphemous and delivered him to the occupying power, i.e. to the force of arms of a nation enemy to the Jews. The mission command left for us makes this obvious. Though the disciples have a notion in their hearts strange to the concept of Jesus even after a three year long study period and an extra course of 40 days. "Lord, will you at this time give the kingdom back to Israel?" - that was their last question to their Master. But Jesus still counts on his own nation. He answers that his disciples should not worry about the national independency of Israel but they will have to be the witnesses of his concept using the power of the Spirit of God. Where will they have to be witnesses? Let's look at the order of places: "In Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1.8)
Summing up what has been said: Jesus who has strong national consciousness considers his own nation as a primary material in the service of a concept capable of embracing all the nations in love. This concept does not exclude national consciousness but it does a national army. He sees a national army as the perdition of a nation. Its absence is considered the way to save the nation.
For those who look at the last two sentences in astonishment: more nations were destroyed than survived in fights. The only secure way of survival for a nation is to have a lot of childbirths. ...
Three main reasons for our national war today are:
a) We engaged in fights with the Tartars during the 13. century and in a year only 200,000 Hungarians remained from the 2.5 million.
b) We were at war with the Turks and from the 3.2 million Hungarians at the end of the 15. century only 200.000 remained again 200 years later.
c) In the second half of our century we throw 5 million Hungarian embryos into the drains.
We killed in all three cases.
Jesus who eliminated murder from his means said: Trust me, I defeated the world. We can also trust in the two statements of his concept mentioned above.
3. The fate of the national consciousness of Jesus in the history of the Church
It is shown by both the last question of the disciples to Jesus and his answer that the minds of the Twelve could hardly catch up with the way of seeing things that the Master wanted to teach. Their catch-up could not be provided automatically even by the Holy Spirit at Whitsuntide, because in the world of the human soul and freedom nothing happens automatically that is in a way determined by God. The way on which our manner of seeing things changes is long from generations to generations - if it succeeds at all and the result is the same as what Jesus wanted to impart to the apostles.
At the beginning of the last decade of the first century the Jewish Council of Jamnia (?) excommunicates those Jews who had become Christians. The army of Titus destroyes Jerusalem, the Council ends functioning, the pharisees organize a new center for educational purposes in Jamnia, and it is ordered that it cannot be missing from the prayers of the synagogue ceremony that God should kill the "nostrims" - that is the Christians called Nazarites.
The Nazarites who want to walk on the way of Jesus of Nazareth leave Jerusalem before the seige and make their escape to Pella over the river Jordan. It is not likely that they escaped due to their cowardice. They were devoted to the Town through decades, though their compatriots executed Stephen and the two James apostles. During the seige those who didn't accept the armed defence of the Town were declared to be traitors. The Christians of Jerusalem knew that Jesus had made even Peter to put his sword into the scabbard. Though not because of cowardice but they escaped and the first hair-crack appeared in the national consciousness of the Jewish followers of Jesus.
There are other gaps showing up too. Saul from Tarsus with really strong national consciousness ("Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham's descendants? So am I." - 2Corinthians 11.22) who loves his nation so much that he could even accept damnation in order to have his compatriots converted to Christianity (Romans 9.1-5) is considered as a public enemy to the Jewish nation: "... who goes everywhere teaching everyone against the people of Israel, the Law of Moses, and this Temple." is stated about him by the people who knows his work in Asia Minor (Acts 21.28). Saint Paul wants to make such a big transformation in the Jewish national consciousness that his contemporaries cannot bear it as they couldn't accept the changing efforts of Jesus: "Away with him! Kill him! He's not fit to live!" - shouted the crowd to the Roman commander (Acts 22.22). This kind of voice belongs to the Jews of Asia Minor who experienced how the people after representing the national unity were divided into two by Paul's words and how they joined to the non-Jews to form a new relation which is called the Church. Another gap, or even a split.
A not ommisible part of the Jewish national consciousness is that all the nations on earth are blessed in them ... and the nations will come to Zion to learn how to walk on the way of the only living God. In other words, when God contracted the alliance (Testament) with them, he contracted it with the whole mankind. We don't have place here to follow the conceptual evolution of Christian theology of this alliance from Jesus to Paul, from Paul to Apollos (presumably the author of the letter to the Jews) in the books of the New Testament, and to the letter of Barnabas outside the New Testament. A quote from the last one (which dates back to the first half of the second century) can show how these gaps become wider to an unabridgeable gulf in time: "The alliance is ours and they lost it forever when Moses got it. They forfeited it when they turned to their idols ... Moses throwed the two stonetables away, they alliance broke up so that the alliance of our beloved Jesus could seal into our hearts ... we will become ... the heirs of Christ's alliance." (4.7-8; 6.19). According to his opinion God contracted his alliance with the Chritians even at the time of the Old Testament. On Mount Sinai too. Until recently - at least the second Council of Vatican - has this gulf been gaping which was unknown to Jesus. He didn't want it but the course of events started by him induced it soon due to our freedom and limits. The two exclusive notions of unity divided the Jewish nation into two groups; the groups of those who accepted and those who didn't accept Jesus. And the first group was absorbed by both the surrounding nations and the churches of hellenized people into - I'd rather not say nations now - related groups dissociating themselves from the Jewish nation.
To the author of the Revelation the word Jew is a holy word which those living in the synagogues of Satan "... who claim that they are Jews but they are not" (Revelation 2.9; 3.9) would not deserve. The author - who is Jewish with no doubt - certainly excommunicated - though he didn't and could not perform the legal procedure of excommunication - his compatriots belonging to the synagogues in spirit and practice. If we consider that the origin of this book dates one or two decades before the Council of Jamnia, than the decision there was not too inconsiderate. They only fixed that the crack had become a gaping gulf. The author of the book possessed himself of the Jewish national past for the Christians in the same way as Barnabas did later. The 144.000 who are marked with God's seal are from the tribes of Israel (Revelation 7.4) and on the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem "the name of the twelve tribes of the people of Israel" are written (Revelation 21.12). Over and above these signs the heroes of this work - the Christian martyrs - don't have any national characteristics and the reader is taken out of the earthly reality to the New - but - Jerusalem where Jesus settles the human history: "Then I saw heaven open, and there was a white horse. Its rider is called Faithful and True ... The Word of God ... Out of his mouth came a sharp sword, with which he will defeat the nations ... he will trample out the wine in the winepress of the furious anger of the Almighty God ... King of Kings and Lord of Lords." (Revelation 19.11-16).
Even if this all is apocalyptic, it can be stated that the worries about the future of the earth and all the nations are unknown to the author, and he expects the remedy of the national and non-national cruelties not from that the society is imbued with the words of the Sermon on the Mount (or the nations coming to Zion will learn how to walk on the way of peace) but that an avenging wrath from God - beyond all the murdering capacity on earth - will end this deadly human history ... In a way where Jesus himself will trample on the winepress of revenge. As in accordance with Peter's message in Solomon's Porch: "Anyone who does not obey that prophet (Jesus) shall be separated from God's people and destroyed." (Acts 3.23).
Contrary to the these expectations of the Apocalypse the Great Babylon - Rome - (Revelation 14.8) didn't fall but lived and ruled on, and the gentle followers of Jesus could continue washing themselves in the blood of the Lamb. Determined by the real experiences of their lives they not only lived and suffered on but also became conscious. From the point of view of our present task a letter to Dyognetos (?) is a remarkable piece of this realization. One passage depicts the national consciousness of the followers (of Jewish or non-Jewish origin) of Jesus.
"Christians are indifferent of other people in terms of region, language or customs. They don't have any cities, own language, separate way of living, but they show a wonderful and amazing discipline in their community life.
They live in both Greek and Barbarian cities and adapt themselves to the customs of their surroundings with respect to meals and clothing too. Everybody lives in his own house, but in a way as if he were a stranger; they take part in everything as citizens and put up with everything as if they were aliens. Every foreign land is native to them and every native land is foreign. They spend time on earth but their citizenship is in Heaven. They love everyone and everybody harass them ..." It is obvious that to find the real meaning of this text is a formidable task and there are several interpretations. I think that the passage wants to describe how the followers of Jesus lived in their situations around the beginning of the second century. The expressions used show this too. I would like to make the following statements:
a) They belong to a nation/culture because this is necessarry, but this doesn't have an importance for them. They don't separate themselves from others for this reason, they rather merge into the environment, or we could say - they assimilate with the majority.
b) It's all the same whether they constitute the majority and don't have to assimilate, because they love people of their type as much as people from other cultures and they are under harassment in both situations.
c) They fulfil the duty of fidelity to the government but this doesn't help them; they are considered aliens even in their own national region.
d) Their environment considers them as strangers, and they live anywhere, in any environments as outsiders, because what is important for them is not their native land but the relations to the Church which is not on the map. They are the citizens of this Church, their lives lived in it is in which they are different from other citizens with whom they live together.
Is this citizenship just as "heavenly" as the social behaviour described in the Sermon on the Mount strives for the "Kingdom of Heaven" emerging in time? Is it without longing to get off? Like the words of Paul eagerly waiting for the quick end of the world (1Corinthians 7.29): "We are citizens of Heaven ..." (Philippians 3.20). I cannot decide.
This passage can have a great value for those trusting in the excess of ethnicity. Some people overcame the separating power of the national language and culture; keeping/fostering these weren't among their primary efforts. They assimilated willingly and showed the same behaviour inside and outside their race. This all can be true but we have to add something: they were able to do this in such a power of a non-national relationship which caused a bigger dislike and hostility in the surrounding people than any other ethnic differences. Although the followers of Jesus could reach the transcendence of ethnicity, those who weren't Christians could not bear it more than the ethnical differences.
In connection with this highly respectable communal way of taking the course of life we have to ask two questions. First: How much was this typical among the Christians of the second century? Did the letter describe the true reality or just set it up as ideal which was realized more or less by some of them? The evolution of the national consciousness of Jesus makes this question reasonable. Second: Is this the attitude Jesus meant? Or in other words: Is it possible to keep a distance from our own ethnicity as found in the letter? Is the option of this letter realistic from the viewpoint of the Genesis?
How the thirteenth chapter of the letter to the Romans had made the Christian consciousness schizophrenic from the beginning is discussed by Windass. It would be hard to find out how much the Christians refusing military service in the legions during the first three centuries were motivated by the command of universal love from Jesus and how much by the fact that they were unwilling to accept the godship of the emperor, that is to put incense on his altar. The Jesus-movement - starting as a Jewish religious awakening - consideres "The Law and the Prophets" as its own holy book, but in this text Jahve is a heroic fighter, the Commander of the Armies. And what's more anyone of the copiers of the Acts didn't feel prompted to skip this sentence about God from Paul's summary of the history of salvation:
"He destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan and made his people the owners of the land" (Acts 13.19). Really, in the second century Markion - not baselessly - came to the conclusion that the Bible presents two Gods which are not in accordance with each other: one is the God of revenge, the other is the God of love. His proposal to leave out the avenging God was rejected by the Christian public opinion and the number of our "Holy Books" didn't decreased. This proposal was rejected, but without formulating unanimously what our poet Babits wrote: "He is not that bloody God; that bloody God does not exist. / When swords clink and blood flows out, that is the sin of men." (Psalm for a child's voice)
With all these I don't want to make the Christian consciousness of the first three centuries and that of the next centuries equal. I just want to point out that the Christian consciousness of the first three centuries wasn't unanimously the consciousness of Jesus, and this statement is valid for the authors of the New Testament. If this hadn't been so, the Church wouldn't have been able to accept the right hand of Emperor Great Constantine. However it accepted without any opposition of the Christian thinkers and confessors. Eusebius celebrates the new Christian Roman Empire as the realization of the Prophets' hope. At the beginning of the next century Augustine creates his theory about the "truthful" war. Due to his influence appears that God in the liturgic doxology who "lives and rules" and at the same time the real God - Jesus - is forgotten more and more who is lord while washing his disciples' feet. He is lord but doesn't keep servants, and came to serve. He is lord who will also serve us in the transcendence. (John 13.13-14; Mark 10.45; Luke 12.37)
As a result of this rearrangement in thinking (and sometimes before it) persons loyally serving the interests of the emperor become - at the emperor's will - the bishops (or the metropolitans) of the Church and historically we get back in no time to the situation before Jesus where the prophets had to draw the attention of the Kings and High Priests of Israel to the intentions of God. I have to say more: because in these centuries there were no prophets at all (mainly due to the fact that we got used to that there was no need for them at the time of the New Testament) we descended to the level of Jupiter's priests. We assured the emperors in their fights about the help of God in the same way as they did. Hence within the world of Christianity "the alliance of the throne and the altar" follows, which is the heritage of different cultures from that development phase where the field of activity of the priest-kings of primitive cultures is divided into the fields of activity for two persons. A good summary is given by - according to the anecdote - Francis Joseph, the "apostolic king". "Army, clergy, and nothing else!" If these two are standing by the ruler, he's got no fear about anything. We have reached our days. During the Vietnamese War an American cardinal - Spelmann - encourages the soldiers in the name of God to protect the values of the Christian culture. The catholic and non-catholic prelates of the Eastern block did the same when assisting the opposite side - to protect the values of the socialist culture.
In the spirit of Augustine's theology the so-called "King mirrors" (?) are made. The Hungarian literature of Latin starts with one of them; the Admonitions were written in the name of Stephen, the Apostolic King. The baptism of the whole Hungarian nation begins based on the strength of the military forces of the kings who were baptized before. The king is an "apostol" and his successors are the commanders of the army. In this case the leaders of the army are the archbishops of Kalocsa at Muhi and Mohacs. The Church instead of building the Kingdom of God shown by Jesus becomes the subsystem and the main assistant of a country/nation from this world. Instead of carrying the national consciousness of Jesus the Christians fulfil the prophesy of Christ: "Coutries will fight each other" (Mark 13.8) - coming up against the plans of Jesus who sent his people to serve in the mission of his armless concept about embracing all the nations for which he founded his church.
After more than one and a half thousand years of Christian wars at the second half of the last century the European nations put the general military service into force. While previously only the nobles and mercenaries had to help to solve the national conflicts, here this became a national duty (in legal meaning that is it can be forced). Only the orthodox Tolstoy (?) lifted up his voice against this. He was excommunicated by his church. Our church kept silent and collaborated.
In the last five minutes of history the Second Council of Vatican allowed the so-called "protest of conscience". But it did it in a way that it permitted the members of the chuch to serve in the army (GS 79). When during the last one and a half decades for the first time in our nation's history the members of the Bokor community denied any kind of armed military service referring to Jesus, the hierarchy delimited itself from them saying that they represented a non-catholic point of view .. and would break the balance created by the NATO and the Warsaw Treaty. The court referred to the standpoint of our high priests and to the appropriate point of the GS when those people were sent to prison for three years. The behaviour of Jesus was considered as non-catholic.
4. Belonging to a nation
Reflecting to all these, a question naturally comes up: should mankind not free itself of a national consciousness that, with its historically visible, relentless logic, makes citizens potential mass murderers from their birth. To this question two answers can be immediately given. First: This, sorry to say, would not be any help to mankind. No, because there have always often been wars, also before the romanticism, which developed national feelings so far. There have been different reasons for war: 1. The problem of subsistence: at the end of the 9th century the Hungarians were chased away from Etelköz by the Petchenegs. Escaping, they went up to the Carpathians, and coming down from there they occupied their new land - naturally with the help of their militaristic God... or in Christian words "...you have brought our ancestors to the holy mountins of the Carpathians" (quoted from the Hungarian Anthem). 2. Amusement for the kings: hunting itself is not quite the thing, but hunting the possessions of the neighbour king, that is more virile, more interesting and probably more profitable. Spring is the season when kings go to war. 3. Spreading the only true faith: we go to crusade to gain back the Holy Land from the pagans. Or: we make a thirty-year-long war to grant the right of free religious practice for the real church of Jesus. 4. Simple robbery can be a reason as well: Vikings and equestrian nomadic peoples (e. g. Huns, Hungarians) led plundering campaigns. At the discovery of America 90 % of the aborigines were distroyed. In Africa there were campaigns to gather slaves.
The second answer is: getting rid of national consciousness is probably impossible. National consciousness is not a consequence of sins. It is not God's punishment either. Is it unseparable from people? It seems, each one of us inevitably belongs to one or other nation. Signs develop to show and realize this appertaining - this is also inevitable. The first man probably did not have any national consciousness. But as the number of people grew, the process of becoming nations necessarily began, since granting of their livelihood forces people to move out of their house and family, to seek for a new place which is rich in water and wild animals. As groups live separated, firstly new dialects, then new languages develop, as earlier contacts completely break off. This holds true to each element of material and spiritual ethography, as separated groups create different habits, different cultures. When the population of these groups grow so far that they reach each other's borders, national consciousness is born: the groups have different names to denominate themselves, different languages, different ways of building houses, different melodies to sing and play.
We develop into our language, into our material and spiritual culture, our religion. We get used to and insist on these. Other peoples' languages, culture, religion we feel different and foreign and therefore we create hetero-stereotypes: those people's language sounds like croaking, they are barbaric, they have superstitions... while our language is beautiful, our culture is developed, our faith is real, as we received it, through our ancestors' transmission, from God himself. Naturally, over there people think the same about us. As we marry someone from another nation, we can change nation and stereotypes. But one thing is problematic: not to belong to any nation.
Even after deep and careful consideration very few people manage not to belong to a nation. There are several reasons for this. 1. We have a mother tongue. In exceptional cases we can change this, when we get to a group with other language, and we start to use this language as we think, pray or compose. But I have never heard of anyone who could forget his mother tongue for the sake of Esperanto or other artificial language. 2. We have a homeland. This cannot be so hostile that it refuses to create our special world of experiences, a world on which we can insist with our emotions to a certain depth. I talked to a Hungarian living in the USA. He used to live in Szilágyság, in Rumania, where Ceaucescu had made it impossible for him to stay. Therefore he emigrated, but in the first half year the only reason why he did not return was that he did not have the money to travel. To change - this is possible, an old insistence can be replaced by a new, but to move from one hotel to another, through a whole life, even in the most beautiful metropolis, this is not for human beings. 3. On mother tongue and homeland folklore and/or national culture above folklore are built; these nurse us before we become self-conscious, and even more afterwards. Arany, a Hungarian poet writes: to be a cosmopolitan poet is impossible, since no poet can detach himself from his people and national culture; all of his works show, as a mirror, the environment he comes from. (Cosmopolitan poetry)
It would be in vain to be free from national consciousness. We cannot be free from national consciousness. To these two propositions I now add a third. In his quoted poem Arany also says:
"A poet should be the same as his people,
because longing to get away is death."
I would say this death applies not only to poets. In Cleveland my book "Ópusztaszer" is under publication in these days. In this book I profess that my "affection" to God's Kingdom could not be dimmed by another, fundamental "affection" of mine to my people. "To live, even in prisons, I can only in my homeland." Is this lameness? I do not think so, but I leave the question open. I think of Jesus, who did not emigrate, even in spite of mortal threats, even though he knew that he was a prophet and consequently was going to be killed by the high priests of his religion. I think of the disciples, who, when they left their homeland, seeked for people from their original religion, original community. The Good News I can stammer in foreign languages as well, but that will always be stammering. I will never be able to say what I would like, only what I can.
Last summer in Cleveland I saw the performance of the Hungarian scouts, from kindergarteners to university students: there were folk songs, ballads, dances. It reminded me of my youth, the 30ies, when I had met, through Bartók, Kodály, István Molnár, our spiritual folklore; when, singing folk songs at a camp fire, we had felt the same adoration as in a church. Sándor Sík, our priest-poet, wrote in his poem "Forgive me":
"... that my tears come not from mea culpa,
but from the song of the rue tree,
and of the spring wind that makes the waters flood."
Maybe it is only my own personal speciality, that all of what "Hungarian folklore" means for me, was like the preparation of roads by John the Baptist - it led me to the understanding of Jesus. Maybe this cannot be generalized. But I know for sure that those from the youth of Debrecen in the forties, who chose this folklore as festive amusement, reached a more qualitive world than those who preferred the occasions of music and dance imported from the west. The previous were more responsive to undertaking persecutions for Jesus. I believe, reaching down to our rustic and national roots provides a more qualitative humanity than the international amusement market. Other peoples' folklore is rather merely interesting for us - our own plucks the deepest strings in our souls. If this essence, crystallized from our ancestors' traditions, in which their feelings, fates, ethics and many more things are involved, from which I come from, not so much individually but rather collectively, were taken away from me, or I myself threw it away - I would be poorer, I would feel cold as I would seeking my ways in this world. Maybe I would find Jesus only because of my longing out of this world, because I lost something... and I have become homeless.
5. The Nationality Problems of the Carpathian Basin
A global Slavic national pain gets formulated again and again since the romantic age: The settlement of the Hungarians splitted the Slavs into Central-Eastern Europe to a Northern and a Southern part. It didn't formulate earlier, although the Slavic nations were located in the same geographical locations before the romantic age as after it. The national consciousness, the national feelings only were latent till the mid 18-th century. The dynastic interest determined the political power, specifically the interests of those classes of society, who enjoyed these dynastic interests. Although the Hungarian kingdom was Hungarian, and the Czech kingdom was Czech, if a Czech man became a member of the Upper House, or a prelate, he joined to the Hungarian kingdom's flag wit his people in the same way, as a Hungarian man joined to the Czech king's flag in an opposite situation. Dozsa's peasants were Hungarian, but they were not included into the Hungarian nation, according to Verboci's Triple Book. He mentions them in the chapter about the Matters (Res), and he writes about the tenures that had serfs on them. Zapolya didn't think that massacring a hundred thousand tenures would have been a national disaster, but he did think that setting the nobiliary mansions in fire was a national disaster. The upper classes of society formed the "Hungarus" nation before the romantic age, and nobody cared if the mother tongue language of the nobles who belonged to these classes were Hungarian or something else. Among the tenures, there were Hungarian, Tot, Ruten, Olah people; and the spoken mother tongue language of the Hungarian kingdom's residents only became important after the victory of romanticism. And then the nations, or nationalities of Hungarians, Slovakians, Ukrains, Romanians appeared.
All these were in the same way outside of the Carpathian Basin, as well, but the changes that came by the romanticism didn't cause any major problem. Because of a missing external factor: They didn't have the one and a half century Turkish occupation, and they didn't have wars of liberation.
Four million people lived in the Hungarian Kingdom in the beginning of the 16-th century (like in England), and about 3.2 million spoke Hungarian s their mother tongue language. The nationalities lived in the wreath of Carpaths from West to South, that was treated as a protecting border, and not as a place for settlements by the conquering Hungarians. In the inner direction from the Carpaths, in the valleys of rivers, and flat lands, where the Hungarians settled down themselves, all the nations that have been there before of the others that came later (e. G. Kun, Jas, and various western nations) became Hungarians, except for the Cipszers and Saxons who were settled in one region. The population of the country was hardly 3.5 million by the beginning of the 18-th century, after chasing out the Turkish regime, and after wars of liberation. But only 1.25 or maximum 1.5 million of those had Hungarian mother tongue language. It wasn't a national problem in that time. People came from Western Europe (Germans), various nationalities came from the hills, and the Southern Slavs who ran away from the Turkish, came from South. Because of this, we enter into the age of Romanticism, when the two third of the country's population does not have Hungarian mother tongue language. However, the Hungarians are still the largest population.
The 19-th century, specially the second half of it, is the age of assimilation. The Catholic Germans, Tots, a major portion of Croatians, all Juishs changed their mother tongue language in areas with Hungarian majority. Twice as much non- Hungarian emigrates to America than Hungarian, so by Trianon eve, 54% of the Hungarian Kingdom declare themselves as Hungarians, 12% as Germans (this is all together 10'2 = 12 millions), and the nationalities are the third third, which is all together 6 millions, and they already formed territorial demands by the end of the last century for the various parts of the Kingdom: 3 million Romanians, 2 million Slovakians, and half-half million Rutens and Serbians-Croatians. The Kingdom is one of the losers at the end of the first World War, and this fact sealed its density. Based on the principle of self- determination, that was represented by Mr. Wilson, the US president, the Kingdom should have lost one third of its territory to the advantage of the above mentioned 6 million nationalities. The Trianon Peace Dictate teared off more than two third of the Kingdom, and gave it to Northern Slavs, Romanians, and Southern Slavs, who all together were one third of the population. Just the 3 million Romanians themselves received more territory of the Kingdom, than the 10 million Hungarians. One third of the 10 million Hungarians get under foreign domination, and this way it becomes Europe's largest "nationality": 3 million Hungarians don't live in their own state. Because the Kingdom is also among the losers after the second World War, the 1946 peace dictate cuts again into the remaining stump-country, too, to the advantage of Czechoslovakia. The population of the Carpathian Basin has grown 50% during the 70 years after Trianon, but the number of the Hungarians living in the territories of the successor states is not more, than the number that Trianon teared to these states (approximately 3 million). It was impossible to publicly talk about the reasons of it during the half century of the Communist regime. Only one topic was allowed: What sins did we commit to our "nationalities" in the distant or near past.
Now we can talk about it publicly, too. The successor states wanted a "national state", meaning a "state without Hungarians". The mature assimilation, that helped Hungarians before 1918, helps them now. And they helped this mature assimilation by such non-mature ways, that have been partially or totally unknown in the Hungarian Kingdom: resettling people inside the country, making them chase, cultural restrictions, massacre (in Bacska). The three successor states varied time to time in the intensity of these actions. Their nervousness can be understood: They have to count on the fact, that nothing, and no border is permanent in the history, and that the hour of the national self-determination/autonomy will come one time. Before that, the time has to be utilized so that when the hour of the arrangement comes, there would be nothing to arrange already. Nothing and nobody prevented them in their national-state ambitions during the last 50 years. Fading of the Soviet dictatorship may create a new situation. It cannot be definitely stated, that the intention changed yet. There is hardly any change in the deep of the souls yet. It's a living wound for them, that Hungarians still live in "their country".
It's very difficult to draw a common picture of how the Hungarians, who live over the border, handle it. The black people who were dragged in to America as slaves, assimilate, the native Indians don't. Their national proudness doesn't allow them to "become Yankee": They would rather die - alcoholism, becoming declassed, and such. The teared Hungarians also has little intention to assimilate, and change language in their ancient land. Specially in those areas, where it goes with religion differences. Lots of them emigrate, being forced, or "voluntarily". To the mother country, or to the world. A lot of them has only-child or two children. Some of them assimilate, and others keep their nationality in miserable economical and cultural oppression. The Hungarians and Germans gave 40% of the population on the teared lands 70 years ago; it only can be 25% in these days. If the circumstances, that support their destruction don't change, then their destiny historically will be probably the same as the Indians' destiny.
6. About autonomy
Since we have the opportunity of publicly talking about these questions, the official and non-official statements talk about integrity of the borders, and spiritualization of the borders. These new slogans have such contents that harmonize with Jesus' basic theses, and there are other contents, that I don't think to be agreed with those. There is no question, that changing borders by war is not an option for people who want to adjust themselves to Jesus. It's also sure, that borders have always been marked by wars, since history. But to accept the given borders at any time, as final ones, is irrealistic on one hand, and is immoral on the other hand. It's irrealistic, because borders have always changed since history. It's immoral, because it means a lay down, a surrender to a situation that have been created by repeated force. Only those can be viewed as Jesus' disciples, who all deny the force, pressure, and threat as principle of solving problems in any scale of human coexistence. What do they put to the place of these? The non-pressure, of course. If we tell it in a positive way, we get to that principle of Jesus, that is destined for solving the problems of human coexistence: the participants of the various scale of coexistence have to come to a such agreement, that they all are willing to take as a solution. What can we take as a mutual agreement? We can take that agrees with the golden rule: We don't do to the other ones, that we don't wish to ourselves. We do to the other ones, what we wish to ourselves, too. It's not necessarily fortunate to name it democracy, because democracy means the reining of the majority - by the etymology, and in most cases also in practice. It means reining by the people in an etymological mean, and in practice, it is the enforcement of the wish of people who live in a territory created by feat of arms. This majority can practice in a legal and democratic way even against a several million member minority, that will cause the slow or fast, but full perdition of the above mentioned minority.
Those, who noticed in themselves this minority-destructive feature of democracy, want to add a new meaning to the word of democracy: Respecting the rights that due to the human being. It means, that the majority cannot vote for such things, that they would deny for themselves (the majority). In this case, democracy would mean the protection of the human rights as such, and the human rights of the minorities. We must put the question: How can this latter democracy-concept function in an environment, where the parliamentary majority is voted by free and secret election, and this elected parliamentary majority controls the country? What guarantees, that the majority will not create laws, administer, and sit in judgment for their own interests, but they will perform these by respecting the rights that due to all citizens and nationalities? The parliamentary democracy cannot likely assure it. The most wide- ranging social autonomy can be the only tool of assuring it.
We can find five such states only in Europe, that has just or just above 10-20 thousands citizens: Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican. The spoken languages of these countries are the same as the languages of the large countries around them: Italian, German, etc. These surrounding large countries tolerate the independence of them. The European way of thinking - harmonizing with the ones can be learned from Jesus - passed the principle of the kingdom from the God's mercy, the monarchy, dictatorship, and reached the principle that refuses the enforcement of one personal wish, the principle of people-majesty. In order to allow this people-majestic principle to create that society contract, that contains everybody's wish, and not only enforces the wish of the majority onto the minority, the society itself has to determine, who belong to the creators of the contract. So the sizes of the individual societies have to be determined by the society itself, and not by the repressive organizations that have been created by feat of arms, that is to say the state power. However, the question arises in this case: What will be the lower limit of the population of the society? Nobody has rights to determine it, but those who want to create a society. The lower limit of this - by principle - is 2 persons. Coexistence of two single or a married couple. Only they, and similar basic cells have the right to determine, how much, or to how many people they want to extend their voluntary community. The Creator didn't give the right to determine the how of human coexistence to the kings from God's mercy, but also didn't give it as a task to the states that have been created under the pressure of feat of arms, but it was given to the individual persons, and to voluntary joinings of those. All these mean, that no group of people has the right - meaning the task given by the Creator - to decide, if a smaller, larger, or any member group of the humanness can treat themselves as sovereign. Let's name it self-governing principle.
The self-governing principle means building from bottom to top. The self-government that is authorized by the state power, and that is instructed by the state power on subjects that they are allowed to create laws, and the state power allows them resources to function, is just a virtual or restricted self-government. We can only talk about real self- government, if a) the self-government itself determines its rights and tasks, b) if itself is the owner of the material resources of the represented society, and c), if itself determines what tasks and what material resources it gives up to the upper self-governments (that have been created by several self-governments on their own common wish). And they give up some to the even upper ones, till the whole built-from- bottom pyramid of the society will be created.
The order that was wanted by God and Jesus cannot be created in the society, till the mankind does not create communities that fits around a table - say 12-13 member ones - , where everyone knows everyone, therefore the community is capable to name the member, who really serves most and best in the community. As opposed to this, the up-to-down measures, let it refer to anything for protecting its hierarchy, is against the creature-theology and Jesus' will. Especially, when it requires religious obedience to the advantage of such persons' decisions, who form rights for their decisions based on persons' arbitrary appointments from outside of the society, and not based on the given society's will.
All these mean, that no state power has right to demand from a self-decided size society, that it has to join an any other sovereign state. Any size has its Creator-originated and Jesus-confirmed right to decide a) if it wants to stay in the state power frame, b) if it wants to join to an other state power that borders upon them or not, and finally c) if it wants to create an independent state. If experiences will show, that the option selected by will of community does not function, then they can change their earlier decision. The mentioned ten thousandish size states of Europe demonstrate that the above mentioned principles do work in practice even such (such small) sizes. Law cannot be created for this, only absolutism. If we still want to speak about law, then only the word differs, the content does not.
The other solution attempt that can often be heard recently is the spiritualization of borders. This would mean, that it would be totally indifferent for a given minority group if it belongs to a state which it joined independently from its will. For all those are guaranteed also inside this state that would be guaranteed in an independent state (or in an other state). It's obvious to me, that it can only be true, if this state power is based on the above described self- governing principle. Otherwise it seems to be unavoidable that the majority group of the feat of arms created state would not enforce its interests to the disadvantage of the minority. And if it didn't enforce such interests, because the majority were so much understand that the same rights due the minority as them, then they wouldn't deny even that right from the minority, that the minority can also live in their own state, or in an other one, where they are not minority anymore.
It doesn't mean less, than the borders can only be spiritualized, if the minorities has the right and opportunity even to exit from their given state power. In this case, the remaining minority in the state power would g e t its rights from the high-moral majority group, and if they choose to have an other state power, they were their own master in their own land. It is not likely, that they choose the grace, if they can utilize their rights.
It also makes you think, that only the losers, the Hungarians talk about the spiritualization of borders in the Carpathian Basin. We can't hear, or hear much less about it from the official or non-official statements of the successor states. The Hungarian voices do not face to the above thoughts, and they represent this way those, that should be realized by the successor states, and what we can do very little for it being realized. Although we can fondle our few percent minority that stayed in our stump-country, which are quite advanced in the mature assimilation because of their spreaded locations (and this way we urge them to dissimilate, that cannot be sincere from any nation... and so neither from us). The successor states are unimpressed by all these, because they know what it's all about: We spiritualize the borders for a few hundred thousand people, and you do it to the advantage of the same million Hungarians. They will not likely want it. Because of their earlier mentioned historical situation, and according to their general moral level, they only are capable of creating a more and more favorable future for the time, when something can be in effect from the self- government principle in the discussed areas of the Carpathian Basin, because of the general human and European development. Even if we can obtain the support of the European public opinion, it only can restrict their ambitions.
So both slogans of our current official and non-official statements (the integrity and spiritualization of the borders) are false by theology of creation, and are strategically naive, self-deception, I must think.
7. About the possible impacts of the churches
At the end, I answer the question of what role can the churches have in solving the above described minority problem. If the church is determined by Jesus' way of thinking, then the solution of the minority problem highly depends on how wide mass, base the church has. There is no question, that a company that represents Jesus' principles, is mostly capable to the Jesus solution, that I think the only real solution.
If we step from the world of ideas into the world of facts, we get a very different picture.
The fact is, that there is people- national characteristic, there is national feeling, there is ambition for national autonomy, national state. And depending on the changes of the borders, once I'm in national minority, and once you will be, and you experience that you are at a disadvantage in your existential success, and they take it amiss that you want to develop mother-tongue and national culture, and they take it amiss that you don't assimilate, and that you exist at all; why don't you go away to the likes of you, or to wherever you want. And the question arises in this situation:
So why doesn't the church help? Well, on one hand, the church helps the most yet. Because, when the minority mother tongue language university is closed down, grammar schools are fused, elementary schools and kindergartens are eliminated... not everywhere of curse, but where the appropriate headcount does not exist (and it is taken care of, because the nationality can only get maximum an unskilled worker job at their place of residence, and can get a job in his profession only in places, where the majority speak the state-language). Then the church is the last resort of the minority. Because he is addressed in his mother tongue language in the church. In these circumstances, who will be the number one public enemy in the eyes of the state, who's words and acts must be monitored the most by the police? Well, the priest. Because he provokes people. It necessarily results in the situation, that (based on the gospel or not) the priest will be the number one bearer of the minority national feelings - with their undesirable overtones! - in these miserable circumstances. This would be the meaning, that "the church helps on one hand".
On the other hand? On the other hand, the state expects for its own nation's priest (so not the minority priest) to stand strongly, and protect its nation's business against all practices of the priests of the minority and against the nationalities who are ready to do all kinds of bad things, - especially in villages, where he is the smartest person, and he is the one listened to the most. If he does his task well, then he will be the bishop - they can assure it. And the bishop - after this personal history - will have his priests stand strongly, even without special state pressure.
The church is the last resort of the minorities. The church is the most major enemy of the minorities. These two sentences are true together. It primarily depends on the priest, if the systematic assimilation will be successful or not. It cannot be disclaimed. The throne - let it be absolutic kingdom or national state - always can count on the priests of its own state and nation. Of course, it could be in a totally different way... if the state didn't became a subsystem of the government in power during the Great Constantin change. But it did become. And it is fact for now. And the priests usually belong to the good patriots: They remain loyal to their pursued nation, and they are flag-bearers in their nation when in power. The Roman Catholic priests of Moldva, that is next to the Carpaths, are the best examples of it: They changed several thousand Hungarians to become Romanians with that simple method, that even a Hungarian word, a Hungarian song couldn't be heard in the Hungarians' churches in Moldva. The Moldva Hungarian child goes to the seminary in Jas, and he will be ordained as priest, and he will also do so. If he doesn't like it, he can move out from his home land.
The third case is a quality case, when the "church" is ready to turn against both the majority and minority in the same time, if the dictatory, communist government, party-state that has been placed to power, and is driven by foreign interests, wants to destroy both of them, or it wants to destroy primarily the majority. A home example: The laws of the party-state make possible, that the living-standard-god adoring Hungarian society had thrown nearly five million Hungarians into the sewer during the past decades, and our hierarchy remains silent. An external example: In the Sovietunion, the patriarchs appointed by the state power acknowledge the will of the government to eliminate the whole orthodox church in such way, that they often make statements on the freedom of religion in the Sovietunion. (With some modification, it could be a home example, too.)
If it's true, that the solution of these questions shows towards the self-government, then we can expect most support from that group of mankind, where the mentioned self- government spirit runs in their blood already. But we can expect very little from our church in this case, because we can hardly find an other group of people in Europe, that is so deeply determined by the prestige/authority principle - as opposed to the self-government principle -, like our church. All bishops are appointed by the pope, all parish priests are appointed by a bishop, and all parish priests are autocrats in their parishes: Even if he listens to the appointed-elected representative staff of the local church in certain questions, he decides in all questions as he wishes, because the staff has right to express their opinion only, and has no right to vote. As for the pope is elected by people, who were appointed by the previous pope-popes for this purpose.
What can we hope in these circumstances? Hope that the Jesus' spirit will prevail. A Hungarian basic community network, that I belong to, did - among other things - three acts during last year for solving the problems of the Carpathian Basin: a) During the weeks after the Temesvar revolution, it carried presents to Transylvania by cars; one package to a Hungarian, and one package to a Romanian family. b) It sent several thousand post cards for New Year in Czech and Slovakian languages to unknown people, based on addresses in the Prague and Bratislava telephone books. c) Hosted 300 Romanian families on a Summer weekend in Budapest.
A new era can begin in the life of the mankind, when we start loving our misbehaving fellow-creatures, too. Love is inventive. It finds solutions. It is sure, otherwise we were not created as intelligent beings for freedom and love. The holy experience has to begin. The nation that begins it, is the recent chosen nation of God.
(Hungary, 1991)