Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode we are

welcoming back a good friend. Dr. W Robert Godfrey, it's nice to have you back

Dr Godfrey. Great to be here. Dr Godfrey of course is president of West

Mr. Seminary California. He is a Ligonier teaching fellow and we are always

looking forward times with him to talk about church history. This time we're going to talk

about something very interesting. And we have to start off with full disclosure. Your wife

is Hungarian. My wife is Hungarian. There we go. So let's now talk about the

Hungarian reform church. Well the Hungarian reform church is one of the great

neglected secrets almost in the world generally speaking.

One of the great successes of the reformed movement in the 16th century was in Hungary and there seemed to be just a wonderful preparation of

the spirit of God for the Calvinistic gospel to come into Hungary and ethnic

Hungarians known as Madyars were very, very responsive to the gospel and the country

very quickly moved to become a largely Calvinist country.

And the great city of Debretson for many centuries was referred to as the Calvinist

Vatican because it was such a strong center of Calvinism, Calvinistic churches, and

Reformed theological education.

Well, we are working towards keeping this well-kept secret,

no longer a secret.

But there's an interesting twist to the story it has to do with the bishops.

That's right.

The Hungarian Reformed Church to this day has bishops and that's somewhat anomalous for continental reformed churches.

And so the question arises, why are there bishops in the Hungarian Reformed Church?

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