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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 30-3-1
TITLE:             Gov't Spokes' man on Church Support of Regime Policies
BY:                Leason
DATE:              1958-7-25
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  General Desk No. 389
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Agriculture, Church and State

--- Begin ---

RFE NEWS & INFORMATION				1958
EVALUATION & RESEARCH
GENERAL DESK No.  389

1958

News Background

H- GOV'T SPOKES'MAN ON CHURCH SUPPORT OF REGIME POLICIES 

MUNICH, August 25 (LEASON) -- The Hungarian Communist
government spokesman Laszlo GYAROS stated at a press conference in BUDAPEST
over the weekend that while Hungarian churches are not called upon to
back the regime "in every respect", the churches do support the
development of socialist agriculture and the policies of the "Peoples
Patriotic Front".

This new statement on Hungarian Communist church-state affairs
was made by GYAROS on Saturday. It is believed to be the first time
the Hungarian Communists have claimed they have church support for
collectivization.

GYAROS said the churches are also co-operating in educating the
"religious masses for patriotism and compliance with civic duties..."

At the same time, the spokesman said, "every endeavor hostile to
the state and the social order" is condemned. "In these political
questions, co-operation has been established between the state and the
churches as a result of which relations between the state and the
churches are improving."

GYAROS' statement can probably be taken as some evidence that
since the ouster in June of Bishop Lajos ORDASS as head of the Hungarian
Lutheran Church, the regime feels it has its non-Catholic church
problems under control. ORDASS was replaced by a regime faithful,
Lajos VETOS. Reports that ORDASS and other strong opponents of the
regime have been arrested have been denied by the regime. YETOE is
currently in Denmark attending a World Council of Churches meeting.

The present situation of the Catholic Church is less clear. One
interesting development is the appointment of the notorious "progressive
priest" Richard HORVATH (excommunicated in February this year) as chief
editor of a new magazine, "Katolikus Szo". Budapest Radio, announcing
publication of the magazine last Friday (Aug. 22), said it would deal
with religious and cultural affairs and with progress of the "peace
movement". Thus, there can be no question but that it is to be an
organ of Hungary's "progressive religion".

***

The question put to GYAROS on the attitude of the Hungarian
churches to domestic political problems is significant in that one of
the charges now being made against the Polish Catholic Church by the
WARSAW regime is that church is trespassing the limits prescribed by
the separation of Church and State. In particular, Cardinal Wyszynski
has been charged (by Henryk Korotynski in Zycie Warszawy of Aug. 9,
1958), with making "an obvious criticism and negation of socialization

[Page 2]

GENERAL DESK NEWS BACKGROUND REPORT, No. 389, 

of property which is the cornerstone of our system". Korotynski
wrote that, in a speech made to college students at WARSAW, the
primate had declared that the "church is opposed to all form of
nationalization of property on a larger scale, because it is
abusive and lawless". (See Polish Press Survey No. 451.

Given the current state of relations between the Polish church
and Communist regime, it would seem that GYAROS statement was meant
to define the regime's attitude toward the Polish situation. It can
perhaps be taken as an example of external pressure being brought to
bear on the GOMULKA regime.

***

If the Hungarian regime feels that it has now reinstituted the
system of "progressive religion" which maintained a wobbly existence
(and was probably never a very decisive factor in the country) before
October 1956, it would indicate that the regime has succeeded through
a variety of means, but to a still undefined degree, in repairing the
damage done during the Hungarian Revolution by the dismissal of 57
"progressive elements from the Roman Catholic Church, 31 from the
Reformed Church and 13 from the Lutheran Church" -- the figures, are
those of president of the State Office for Church Affairs, Janos HORVATH,
in an article in the July issue of periodical Belpolitikai Szemle.

HORVATH indicated in his article that the "most important group"
of churchmen, the "progressive clergy," have full regime support. And,
since the churches are not politically united: "...the possibility
exists for the most progressive clergy to join forces with the masses
of clergymen who want to live in peace with the state and to turn with
mounting force against the active reactionary elements".

End

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