According to the plans, in the near future, a forty-square-meter room will be built on the north side of the church, where there will also be a baby-mother room and a tourist visitor center.

After the exterior restoration, the interior of the Szilágyi Dezső tér Reformed Church in Budapest was also renewed. At the thanksgiving service on Sunday, Zoltán Balog, the bishop of the Reformed Church District of Dunamellek, the pastor president of the synod, preached his word.

Zoltán Balog highlighted:

the Acts of the Apostles is a mirror that still validly shows how to build a church.

He recalled: The apostle Paul went to Athens because the developing Christianity had to fight with the spiritual trends of the time, just like today. However, the apostle does not give an incendiary sermon to the Epicureans and Stoics who long for new things but despise him, nor does he push the idolaters down, but tries to find common ground. He tries to find a common "moral minimum", a "spiritual starting point" from which they can start.

Zoltán Balog pointed out: witnessing about Christ has its classic ways and temptations, one of these temptations today is withdrawal. To let "let the sinful city perish, let those who do not understand the gospel perish", inviting only a few into the community.

The Reformed bishop said: the path of Christians in Hungarian society should not be withdrawal, renouncing the "sinful world", but the path of the Apostle Paul. We have to find a common language, since "we have a common history and culture, we share a common destiny in times of trouble, joy and sorrow".

Zoltán Balog also touched on the fact that, alongside the common, there is also the "special", the "single, unique and perfect sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ". The encounter with Jesus can only be personal.

Education, culture, history, family can gift a person with the Christian heritage, but the personal decision that "yes, this is mine too", "I belong here" cannot be spared, he said.

At the service, Zoltán Fürjes , the Prime Minister's Deputy State Secretary responsible for church and ethnic relations, read Viktor Orbán's letter. The Prime Minister wrote:

whoever walks along the Danube bank in Pest or looks out of one of the river-facing windows of the Parliament, immediately catches the eye of the Szilágyi Dezső tér church's "slender tower, which, like a finger pointing to the sky, beckons us, Hungarians, where we can expect help in difficult times" .

At that time, the reformed citizens of Buda could have thought of this as well, who waited for decades, yet did not give up the hope that they would one day have a church built for themselves in the heart of the capital. From their shared dream, a special building was born, the walls of which have since witnessed not only famous weddings, but also the endurance of a community during the World War and then the long decades of communism.

Today, their example teaches us that "going to church is not a habit, but a confession of faith".

Because as long as there are people who "cross the threshold of this church from Sunday to Sunday, there will be a Reformed church, there will be Christianity and there will be a Hungarian nation on the banks of the Danube," Viktor Orbán said in his letter.

The church, built between 1893 and 1895 based on the plans of Samu Pecz, was consecrated on Palm Sunday 1896. The exterior restoration of the building, which was damaged during the Second World War, was completed in 2014, and now the interior has also been renovated. The government supported the internal renovation with HUF 520 million.

As part of the renovation, the pattern of almost 300 square meters of the church's window surface was restored. A new, patterned terrazzo floor was laid, under which there was a floor heating system and a completely new electrical network. The heating, cooling and ventilation of the church is automated, and the lighting is energy-saving. The washroom was expanded and a barrier-free restroom was also built.

According to the plans, in the near future, a forty-square-meter room will be built on the north side of the church, where there will be a baby-mother room, a tourist visitor center and an entrance especially for the disabled.

Minister of Finance Mihály Varga and Márta V. Naszályi (Párbeszéd) Mayor of District I participated in the service.

MTI

Featured image: Zoltán Balog, bishop of the Reformed Church District of Dunamellék, pastor president of the synod of the Reformed Church of Hungary, preaches the word at the thanksgiving service in the renovated Szilágyi Dezsõ Square Reformed Church on June 6, 2021. PHOTO: MTI/TIBOR ILLÉS