Rabbi Fabian Hershkovits (former Chief Rabbi of Budapest, now living in Tel-
Aviv, Israel) had the following to say:
"Bishop Ravasz was certainly not an anti-Semite. After the war, in 1947, he was the President of the Council of Christians and Jews of which I also was a member. He and his friends intended, by supporting the anti-Jewish law in 1938, to guard the national Hungarian interest. He did not understand that Europe, after Hitler had come to power, had become a powder-magazine; one should not light a match in a powder-magazine; that was Bishop Ravasz's historical mistake." [165]
The fact remains that Protestant Bishops supported an anti-Semitic Law. If this was an error of judgment, it certainly was a fatal error.
In 1939, the Hungarian government introduced a bill for the enactment of the second anti-Jewish Law. The measures included drastic curtailments of personal rights. The representatives of the Churches "stood solidly against the passage of the bill" but ultimately "refrained from voting down the Teleki government," that is to say they did not vote against the passage of the Law but tried "to incorporate such provisions in the law as would insure the greatest possible benefits for particular Jewish categories, the first among these being the Jewish converts to Christianity". [166] Hilberg comments:
"In waging the struggle for the baptized Jews in the first place, the church had implicitly declined to take up the struggle for Jewry as a whole. In insisting that the definition exclude Christians, the church in effect stated the condition upon which it would accept a definition that set aside a group of people for destruction." [167] <65>
15 RUMANIA
We hardly found any statement against anti-Semitism issued by one of the
Orthodox Church leaders in Eastern Europe, before the second world war.
Rumania was notorious for the strong anti-Semitic influences in that country.
The following Declaration, issued on April 15, 1933, by Mgr. Pimem,
Metropolitan of Moldavia and Suceava, is the more striking:
"We now are in the Holy Week and for a time we must forget petty affairs and acts of men. Nevertheless I wish to state one thing, namely, that I do not approve of the actions and policies of the Nazis with respect to the Jews of Germany, just as I disapprove of the anti-Christian campaign carried out in Russia. I desire peace for the entire world and on the occasion of this Holy Feast I express my wishes for the health and progress of our people. We should follow but one course: the way of Christ, for only thus can we be led to salvation." [168]
16 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
Many leaders of the Churches in Great Britain publicly protested against the first anti-Jewish measures in Germany. Most of the protests were made by the leaders of the Church of England, though some made by other Churches are also recorded. The Church of England, however, certainly had the widest range of influence in England. I have not recorded all protests that were made. [169] <66>