The Development of the Reformed Church in Hungary

Abstract

The Reformed Church in Hungary is a Reformed Protestant church in terms of its confession of faith, in which both adjectives, Reformed and Protestant, are emphasized. From this formulation follows the critique and firm rejection of a form of organization that existed before and still exists today: that of the Catholic Church. The foundations of Reformed (in this article, the term “Reformed” is used to designate the ecclesiastical and theological tradition associated with Calvin, Bullinger, Zwingli, and others) church institutions and church organization were formulated by Calvin in the Institutio, from which Reformed church law, through its historical development, formulated the principle of universal priesthood as a fundamental principle, the principle of synodal presbyterate as a constitutional principle of the church, and the principle of a free church in a free state, although the latter establishes the relationship between church and state. In distinguishing between a theologically postulated church and a church embodied in legal organization, canon law may examine the latter, and in particular, the canon law of the Protestant churches indeed sharply distinguishes it from the theological concept of church. Thus, in examining the development of the organization of the so-called visible church and the questions of the structure and functioning of the institution in the present, I will examine the organization and functioning of the Reformed Church in Hungary in the light of the organizational principles and methods that have developed historically, with a view to outlining the conditions for future optimal functioning. In my study, I trace the transformation of the Reformed Church from its beginnings to the change of regime.

Keywords

• Reformed Church in Hungary
• ecclesiastical law
• presbyterian-synodal governance
• church−state relations
• religious freedom
• church history