Norwegian theologian says Hungarian bishop was cold war spy
-10/0/06
Zoltan Kaldy, the
Norwegian theologian says Hungarian bishop was cold war spy
-10/0/06
Zoltan Kaldy, the Hungarian bishop who was president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) from 1984 to 1987, was an agent of his country’s secret police from the late 1950s, says Norwegian theology professor Tormod Engelsviken ñ writes Oivind Ostang for Ecumenical News International.
Engelsviken told the Christian daily newspaper Vart Land on 5 October 2006 that he reached his conclusions after a three-year study of relations between the Lutheran Church in Hungary and ecumenical organisations, in particular the LWF.
The Norwegian theologian had access to Kaldy’s files in Budapest secret police archives. Assisting in his study was Laszlo Terray, a Hungarian who was a (Lutheran) Church of Norway priest for several decades. The full study will be published in 2007.
Engelsviken said Kaldy, code-named “Pecsi”, was already a secret police agent in 1958 when he succeeded Bishop Lajos Ordass in the southern diocese of Hungary’s Lutheran church. Ordass, at the time an LWF vice-president, was forced to resign by the communist regime which gained an iron-grip on power after the 1956 uprising against the Soviet presence in Hungary. Kaldy was then seen by many as complicit with the regime.
Engelsviken said Kaldy’s file has 1200 pages of reports about personnel, diocesan and church matters as well as trips made abroad until 1978. Kaldy regularly met with his handler at undercover addresses in Budapest, as did his colleague in the northern diocese, Bishop Gyula Nagy, said Engelsviken.
The professor said the synod of the Lutheran Church in Hungary received a report on the matter earlier this year.
Kaldy was elected LWF president at the Lutheran federation’s 1984 assembly in Budapest. In the months before his election concern was expressed in Norway and what was then West Germany, that the LWF should not elect someone who had taken over from the ousted Bishop Ordass.
He died in 1987 and was succeeded as LWF president by the German bishop, Johannes Hanselmann.
The Rev Trond Bakkevig, a former general secretary of the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations, told Vart Land on 6 October that Engelsviken’s findings did not surprise him.
“I was sceptical of Bishop Kaldy all the time, partly because he always defended the regime and partly because he had been willing to succeed Bishop Ordass,” said Bakkevig. Still, Bakkevig defended the two lines of contact to Eastern European churches in communist times: the official one to church leaders and the more unofficial one to underground congregations.
Professor Tormod Engelsviken was moderator of the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations from 1999 to 2003. He teaches at the Norwegian Lutheran School of Theology in Oslo.
With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.
[Also on Ekklesia: Hungary urged towards religious unity by uprising memories 08/10/06]
Norwegian theologian says Hungarian bishop was cold war spy
-10/0/06
Zoltan Kaldy, the Hungarian bishop who was president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) from 1984 to 1987, was an agent of his country’s secret police from the late 1950s, says Norwegian theology professor Tormod Engelsviken ñ writes Oivind Ostang for Ecumenical News International.
Engelsviken told the Christian daily newspaper Vart Land on 5 October 2006 that he reached his conclusions after a three-year study of relations between the Lutheran Church in Hungary and ecumenical organisations, in particular the LWF.
The Norwegian theologian had access to Kaldy’s files in Budapest secret police archives. Assisting in his study was Laszlo Terray, a Hungarian who was a (Lutheran) Church of Norway priest for several decades. The full study will be published in 2007.
Engelsviken said Kaldy, code-named “Pecsi”, was already a secret police agent in 1958 when he succeeded Bishop Lajos Ordass in the southern diocese of Hungary’s Lutheran church. Ordass, at the time an LWF vice-president, was forced to resign by the communist regime which gained an iron-grip on power after the 1956 uprising against the Soviet presence in Hungary. Kaldy was then seen by many as complicit with the regime.
Engelsviken said Kaldy’s file has 1200 pages of reports about personnel, diocesan and church matters as well as trips made abroad until 1978. Kaldy regularly met with his handler at undercover addresses in Budapest, as did his colleague in the northern diocese, Bishop Gyula Nagy, said Engelsviken.
The professor said the synod of the Lutheran Church in Hungary received a report on the matter earlier this year.
Kaldy was elected LWF president at the Lutheran federation’s 1984 assembly in Budapest. In the months before his election concern was expressed in Norway and what was then West Germany, that the LWF should not elect someone who had taken over from the ousted Bishop Ordass.
He died in 1987 and was succeeded as LWF president by the German bishop, Johannes Hanselmann.
The Rev Trond Bakkevig, a former general secretary of the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations, told Vart Land on 6 October that Engelsviken’s findings did not surprise him.
“I was sceptical of Bishop Kaldy all the time, partly because he always defended the regime and partly because he had been willing to succeed Bishop Ordass,” said Bakkevig. Still, Bakkevig defended the two lines of contact to Eastern European churches in communist times: the official one to church leaders and the more unofficial one to underground congregations.
Professor Tormod Engelsviken was moderator of the Church of Norway Council on Ecumenical and International Relations from 1999 to 2003. He teaches at the Norwegian Lutheran School of Theology in Oslo.
With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.
[Also on Ekklesia: Hungary urged towards religious unity by uprising memories 08/10/06]