CHURCH VISITATION IN BUDAPEST
by Frederick Mukungu from Uganda

As we drove through Budapest City from the Airport on Saturday to the IAMS conference at Balaton, I saw a number of big churches with tall spires along the way. Thinking that some of them were Anglican, I looked forward to visiting one of them the next day.
So came 17 August and all the conference participants boarded buses taking us to various churches. On reaching Budapest City, four of us were collected by an elderly Priest and led to an old Skoda sallon car. He drove us to Almassy Street. As we came out I looked for a church spires around but there was none to be seen, only to be led to a side door of nearby building which was under repair, into an undeground room. That was the church, St Margaret of Scotland Chaplancy or Parish, and the only Anglican congregation in Budapest City. And the Priest who had picked us, the Rev. Canon Denis Moss was its Vicar, assisted by his wife, Maria.
It was a Holy Communion service. As we prepared to start, the Dean of Monmouth Cathedral in Wales joined us. We were told that he was on holiday in Budapest. The service was led by the Vicar who introduced us with my friends Andreas from Denmark, Jaap from the Netherlands and Jeremiah from USA to the congregation. I was privileged to preach to a congregation of about 60. The singing led a choir of about five was wonderful. After the service we had lunch with the congregation.
Canon Moss told us a brief history and composition of the church in Hungary and Eastern Europe. Christianity came to Hungary in the third and fourth centuries with the coming of the Roman invasion. The Anglican church only came in the 1890s and is less than 1 % of the Christians sin Hungary. The whole of Eastern Europe has only one Anglican Diocese whose Bishop stays in England, and the Archdeacon in Vienna, Austria. The Roman Catholic Church is about 66% of the Hungarian Chiristian population, followed by the Reformed Church with 22%, Lutheran Church with 6%, and others.