A Revolution's Unlikely Spark

By John Greenwald

As pastor of the Hungarian Reformed Church in the Transylvanian city of & Timisoara, the Rev. Laszlo Tokes seemed an unlikely figure to spark a revolution. But Tokes, 37, possessed a sharp tongue at a time when that attribute was rare in Rumania. Not only did he lash out against the tyrannical regime in Bucharest, but he even accused Hungarian Reformed Church leaders of collaborating with communist authorities.

No cause aroused Tokes's wrath more than the plight of his fellow 1.7 million ethnic Hungarians, who make up 8% of the Rumanian population and are concentrated in Transylvania, the country's westernmost region. Long a center of ethnic turbulence, Transylvania passed from Hungary to Rumania in 1918, after World War I. The region reverted to Hungary in 1940, and was ceded back to Rumania in 1944. Ethnic Hungarian leaders charge Bucharest with attempting "cultural genocide" by shutting ethnic schools, dissolving Hungarian communities and seizing historical archives. Some 18,000 ethnic Hungarians fled Rumania last year.

Tokes ran afoul of authorities last August in an outspoken interview with Hungarian television. Among other things, he attacked Bucharest's plan to raze up to 8,000 villages and resettle their residents in high-rise apartment complexes. Some 50,000 ethnic Hungarians would be relocated in the program, which has brought denunciations from international human rights groups and strained relations with the Budapest government.

Denied a ration book by the state after the broadcast, Tokes was unable to buy bread, meat or fuel. Parishioners who tried to bring him provisions were confronted by police. The pastor was barred from meeting relatives, and his telephone was shut off. In a surreal form of harassment, authorities occasionally turned on the phone to deliver threats to Tokes, then billed him for the calls at long-distance rates. To protect his four-year-old son, Tokes sent the boy to live with relatives.

In November four masked thugs broke into the apartment where Tokes lived with his pregnant wife, and they beat and stabbed the minister. Two friends who were visiting Tokes helped fight off the attackers. In a smuggled videotape made last fall, a haggard Tokes showed clear signs of strain. "They've broken our windows every day," he said. "Now they've started breaking them in the church as well. Our friends sleep here now. The nights are terrible."

Threats of violence were just part of Tokes's troubles. Church officials tried to transfer him to a less volatile parish in southern Rumania. When < Tokes refused, Bishop Laszlo Papp accused the pastor of "violating the laws of both church and state" and obtained a court order for his eviction. But hundreds of supporters formed a human chain around Tokes's building to protect him, thus triggering the crackdown that helped inspire the nationwide demonstrations that toppled Nicolae Ceausescu.

Tokes and his wife were taken into custody, present whereabouts unknown. After Ceausescu's fall, Rumanian television said Tokes was alive and well and "calling on people not to give up their fight for freedom." The once obscure minister has already joined the ranks of Eastern Europe's foremost fighters for liberty. Wrote Solidarity leader Lech Walesa in an open letter to Tokes last week: "I honestly admire your activity in a country oppressed by dictatorship. Even prison walls will not be able to hide what is noble and good from the eyes of the world."

With reporting by John Borrell/Vienna