with the country’s deadliest bank robbery ever, a Reformed official told BosNewsLife Tuesday June 17.
Eight people, including at least one Christian, were killed after two gunmen unleashed a hail of machine-gun bullets in the Austrian owned Erste Bank in Mor, 45 miles (about 70 kilometres) south west of Budapest in May last year.
Hungarian President Ferenc Madl said at the time that the attackers made "a mockery out of laws of humans and God".
STRANGE DEVELOPMENT
Yet, "it sounds strange, but something good has come out of this tragedy," explained Pastor Zita P. Toth (50), who leads a 125-strong Reformed congregation in Mor with her husband.
"Never before have people been so open to the Gospel. They are stopping you on the street and ask questions about the Christian faith," said Toth, who is also a member of the Judicial Commission of the Hungarian Reformed Synod.
"Among the dead was at least one Christian woman, the bank manager. People ask me: "Why did it happen? She was a good Catholic woman? But that gives me an opportunity to witness and share the mercy (of Christ)," Pastor Toth added.
CHURCHES INCREASING
She said church attendance has increased in the town of about 16,000 people. "I can see more people, but even more important I can see the search for Christ." The Catholic and Lutheran denominations in Mor are having more church services to cope with demand, Toth said.
While Hungarian prosecutors are still investigating the bank robbery in a desperate effort to press charges, pastor Toth seemed to suggest that in the end God will judge everyone, adding there is Hope, even in times of crisis. United States and other Christians have recently stepped up prayers for Hungary and its government, BosNewsLife has learned.
The former Communist country of roughly 10 million people has long seen a high suicide rate and other social troubles, which some pastors linked to Satanic influences during Hungary’s troubled history.
