Gulyas and the Gospel

Evangelist Billy Graham brings the word to Budapest

At dawn the worshipers began gathering in a sunbathed clearing in the wooded hills north of Budapest, overlooking the Danube. In this Sermon on the Mount setting, wizened farmers in stiff Sunday black mingled with villagers wearing gaily embroidered costumes and city youths in Western jeans and printed T shirts. The crowd had reached 10,000 when the Rev. Billy Graham, visibly moved at the reception, made his way to the rostrum last week to begin his first Soviet-bloc preaching tour in three decades of gospel globetrotting.

Following introductions and a Southern gospel solo by Singer Archie Dennis that bemused the congregation, Graham began by explaining, a sentence at a time to permit translation into Hungarian, that he had come to Hungary at least partly to check whether the Danube was blue and get a taste of native gulyas. He recalled his own days as a boy down on the farm where he milked 20 cows every morning and coped with lost sheep and a smelly goat. Then he switched to his favorite sermon text, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (in Hungarian: "Ugy szerette, Isten a vilagot, hogy egy szueloett Fiat adta oda"). When Graham concluded by asking the Hungarians to signal their rededication to Jesus Christ, thousands of arms were raised in response.

This was not a vast, much-publicized Billy Graham crusade like those that have drawn millions of people throughout the non-Communist world. The audiences on the hillside and in subsequent overflow church meetings were made up of devout Protestants, not the general public. To make sure of that, Hungary's state-run media carried no advance notices of the gatherings.

For all that, the Hungary trip, which resulted from five years of negotiations, was a well-calculated breakthrough. Graham's only previous preaching in a Communist nation was a low-key appearance ten years ago in nonaligned Yugoslavia. The Danube tour was also a historic occasion for Graham's official host, Hungary's Council of Free Churches. It represents 50,000 Protestants, who are not only overshadowed by the major Reformed and Lutheran bodies in Hungary, but very much a minority in a country that was two-thirds Catholic at the time of the Communist takeover.

To some extent, the visit was part of a broad tactical maneuver by the Communist regime of Janos Kadar. On the brink of next month's talks on the Helsinki accord, Hungary is eager to brush up its image and counteract complaints about church restrictions from both Hungarian and U.S. Christians. In fact, Hungary probably has the most liberal church policy among Warsaw Pact countries. Sunday schools and youth retreats are permitted. Bibles, though expensive, are available. Even so, open evangelism and freedom of church publication in the Western sense are unknown. Evangelical Christians are customarily excluded from the universities and the professions.

Kadar has actively been wooing the Vatican, and since last year all Catholic bishoprics in Hungary have been filled. Next week three top-ranking U.S. Catholic bishops will arrive for a good-will tour. One of Kadar's major goals, it appears, is to acquire a "most favored nation" trade status with the U.S.

Graham, who once said Communism was "masterminded by Satan," must be aware of the political mileage the Kadar regime wants to get from his eight-day visit. The circumspect evangelist avoided comment, however, and, playing the role of unofficial diplomat, met with Hungary's Deputy Premier Gyorgy Aczel and gave him a private message from a fellow Baptist named Jimmy Carter. He also disarmed a number of Hungarian Protestant leaders who had been skeptical about the seriousness of superstar evangelists.

For Graham, as for Kadar, the visit was a means to an end. At 58, he has crusaded in 55 countries and longs to preach further in the Communist world. The Rev. Alexei Bichkov, general secretary of the Soviet Union's Baptist council, was on hand in Budapest to greet Graham and observe the meetings. This, and the success of the week, led to speculation that Graham might some day preach in the U.S.S.R. and Rumania, both of which have harsh policies against Christianity. -

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