György Benyik, a Roman Catholic parish priest and theologian, was awarded the Pro Unitate in Christo prize of the Reformed Both Antal Theological and Cultural Foundation. The award will be presented by Károly Fekete, Reformed Bishop of Trans-Tisza, and Zoltán Kustár, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, at the Reformed Great Church in Debrecen, at the closing event of the Ecumenical Prayer Week, the organizers told MTI.
According to their statement, György Benyik contributed to the theological dialogue, mutual knowledge, and respect between the Hungarian Catholic and Protestant churches for a long time by significantly organizing and continuously organizing the Szeged Biblical Conference.
György Benyik launched the Szeged Biblical Conference series of events in 1989, which has been a meeting forum for Catholic Bible scholars in Hungary and abroad every year since then. As early as 1989, at the first gathering, the question arose as to whether the conference should be open to other denominations. György Benyik decided to open it: the series of events in Szeged became the most important forum for ecumenical encounters and interfaith dialogue for Hungarian-speaking practitioners of biblical studies.
Among the speakers were Western European and Hungarian Protestant theologians from here and beyond, who could experience the ecumenical openness and fraternal atmosphere of the conference and continue a meaningful interfaith discourse on Scripture, they wrote.
The announcement reminds us that the Board of Trustees of the Both Antal Theological and Cultural Foundation established the Pro Unitate in Christo Award in November 2018 and approved the award procedure. The name of the award in Hungarian translation: For the unity lived in Christ.
The primary purpose of establishing the award was to symbolically promote ecumenical, interfaith dialogue domestically and internationally, especially between the Roman Catholic and Reformed Churches.
The prize, which can be awarded annually to one person, has been awarded to Mihály Kránicz, a Roman Catholic theologian, professor at the Péter Pázmány Catholic University, and Zoltán Bóna, Reformed pastor, former secretary-general of the Ecumenical Council of Hungarian Churches.
MTI
