Religion: Tightening Screws

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Hungary's short and bloody revolution against its Communist overlords in October 1956 was a chance for the churches to make a break for freedom. Pro-Red Calvinist Bishop John Peter was deposed, as was Lutheran Bishop Lajos Veto. Staunchly anti-Red Bishop Lajos Ordass was freed from house arrest, resumed his post as primate of the Hungarian Lutheran Church. It was a year before the Communist regime of Janos Kadar was ready to move in again on the churches, but now the process is well under way.

Collaborationist Bishop Veto announced last week that he had replaced Bishop Ordass as Lutheran Presiding Bishop of Hungary. At the same time Bishop Veto and his fellow traveler, Calvinist Bishop Albert Bereczky, were decorated with the Banner Order of the Hungarian People's Democracy, second class, one of the highest decorations available to nonmembers of the Communist Party. (Roman Catholic Archbishop Josef Groesz received the same decoration earlier in the month.)

Applying the screws with one hand, the Communists did some back-patting with the other, deferred a scheduled 25% cut in state funds for the Calvinist Church. But inside and outside Hungary there were no doubts about what was going on. Said West Germany's Lutheran Bishop Hanns Lilje of Hannover: "There could not have been a more effective way of spreading suspicion against the Hungarian regime and its basic ideology."