1/3/1920         Born at Bethlenfalva, Romania (Transylvania)

Father died young.  placed in mother's village

1939 Patroned by Unitarian minister of Udvarhely

Started Theological School in Kolozsvár

1944   Graduated from theology     At Keresztúr all ministers had fled from War until 1945.  ministered to district and ran school for year (nearly starved)

represented Hungarian Popular Association, became member of Communist party; worked for election of Petru Groza's communist government, in interest of Hungarian minority.

Proposed as member of Central Committee in Bucharest as representative of Hungarian minority; dilemma; his student Fazakas János would eventually go.

1947      Invitation to pulpit in Siménfalva, prestigious village, but automatic expulsion from Communist party

Fear of conflict

Love of Kovacs Judit,

1947-59         Siménfalva--an ideal Unitarian village life

1956   History of the Transylvanian Unitarian Literature of Sermon between the 16th and the end of the 18th century.   Master's thesis, a priceless value.  created a new discipline of the practical theology.  He took the exam of practical theology on October 30, 1956 Summa cum laude  and got the Master degree of divinity [magister of sacred Theology] on November 6, 1956, just during the Hungarian Revolution, in those day of passion and fear, ecstazy and disaster.

1958   the Seminary at Kolozsvár as a University grade institution started its postgraduate course for doctorate [PhD] degree, only for those who already have the Master degree.  Gellérd Imre immediately registered.  As a natural consequence of his scholarly promotion would have been the next vacant professoral chair of the Seminary.   a far dream because the professor of practical theology at that time was Dr. Simén Dániel.  His influence on Gellérd Imre would mean life-long boundage and eventually cause his  tragedy, the failure of his career.  Beside the darkening political situation, Gellérd Imre was becoming a victime of vanity and jelousy of his ideal, Simén Dániel. 

1959   Arrested.   after the Hungarian revolution of 1956, the Romanian government - as a prevention - imprisonned more than 50,000 intellectuals (writers, priests, ministers, professors, artists).  Izsák Vilmos (the secret police informer) managed just by a phone-call to Bucharest to the headquarters of the church inspectors, that Gellérd Imre be arrested because of his "incriminated sermons".  He was 39.  In a "conceptual trial"--all these political trial were so-called conceptual, a prefabricated accusation, preparing the prisoners for month-- with injections and the most sophisticated methods of psychical torture and breaking their resistence--to the trial which was based on a precise "script" and preconceived sentence.  Gellérd Imre got 7 years of political prison and labour camp, plus 5 years of loosing his civil rights after.  Thousands died in these prisons.  And thousands were broken in their "backbone", forced to become secret police informers. Gellérd Imre didn't compromise for a moment, in anything, remained a human.

1959-65         Prison.  Danube Delta, a living hell.

Meanwhile, Izsák Vilmos, with a "quick" doctorate caught Gellerd Imre up and became the professor of the practical theology, later the president of the Unified Theological University.

1965-80         - Gellérd Imre totally destroyed in his health and spirit, he lost even his congregation; he wasn't allowed to return to his beloved village in spite of the insistence of the congregation.  He got a "punishment village", Homoródszentmárton, one of the remotest, smallest and spiritually "degenerated", with dark conflicts inside of the congregation.  It was a perfect place to be buried alive.

 

            - He just kept writing sermons, hundreds of little masterpieces, essays, novels, poems, educational material for children, songs.

            - And after his political rehabilitation, he started  to write a new doctorate dissertation--the continuation of the previous thesis: the 19th century, the "great century" of the Unitarianism in Transylvania.  This was considered a scholarly masterpiece "unique work in our whole literature.  And as a consequence, to become finally a professor of the Seminary.

 

1971      Gellérd Imre was ready and already scheduled to get the title of the doctor of the theological sciences.  But a few month before this already scheduled event, Ceausescu announced a "cultural revision" for reconsidering every cultural product whether is promoting his policy or not.  Izsák Vilmos called again the Bucharest headquarters, suggesting them to revise Gellérd Imre thesis having a quote from a sermon, being "compromising"  to the Romanian people (mentioning a Romanian peasant riot, locusts invasion and pestilence as source of misery for people, in the same sentence)  The government representative ordered: the sentence should be taken off of the thesis.  But Izsák blackmailed Gellérd Imre by telephone: he is going to be arrested if he doesn't withdraw  his doctorate entirely, and apologize because compromising so much the prestige of the whole Theological school.   Gellérd Imre frightened to death, not consulting anybody in the church, announced an instant withdrow of his doctorate and apologized, and for the rest of his life, he felt a mandatory guilt.  {Letter to Erdö}

- All of these dates: that his crush had been always suggested by one of the Unitarian church leadership from Kolozsvár, I gained later from a general of the Romanian Army, who, retired, happened to be a patient of our Neurological Clinic from Marosvásárhely.  I was a doctor of the ward where he was treated with Parkinson disease.  After a successful treatment, he offered his help if I would need.  And responding to my only request, to search about my father's case, he wrote a letter, expressing his surprise that Gellérd Imre's crash had been dictated from his own church.

- 15 years passed in his new miserable place.  On his 60th birthday, he committed suicide as a final protest of him.  In a tape he left a message to his children: "beside my life not having any further sense, I have precise information about a coming, already prepared arrest" which he was unable to face again.  A new blackmail?  Nobody will find out.  All during these 15 years after the prison, the persecution of him was continuous, beside the active neglecting of him by the church, not publishing his writings either.

 

1/1/80    Received telephone call from Koloszvar from Izak Vilmos about his imminent arrest.  Called Bishop Kovács.  Resigned his church. There were many SOS signals.  Took sleeping pills.

 

1/3/80    Died on his 60th birthday.

 

1/5/80    Buried in Udvarhely.  70 ministers attended but no one from Kolozsvar.  Bishop always buries a minister.  But he nor no official representative of his church's hierarchy came or took part. 

              

 

This first document was brought out of Romania and was recognized by the Hungarian Academy of Science as one of priceless value.  They asked for the right to edit the volume (of course in the Marxist viewpoint on the history of Hungarian literature).  But they were going the rework the volume under their own names.  Not as a religious document but for its value in preserving the history of literature.

 

Ideals were Francis Dávid and Jesus.

Yet both died for their ideals, both were martyrs.

He too died for his ideals.  In 1948 a chance to be the Hungarian rep in the new Romanian Central Committee (the job went at his recommendation to his student), instead he refused and accepted a church, and was thrown out of the party.

As the systematic program of infiltration and demoralization of the churches excellerated, he became one of the victims.  Slowly the churches were compromised by rewarding those who served the state more than protected their own institutions.  One American religious leader rationalized that "someone had to be bishop and serve under those compromising conditions."  But that does not account for the psychology of collaboration and demoralization:  show your loyalty to the state by informing on your neighbor or fellow minister and you will receive a small reward, don't help and you will suffer.  The ambitious and perhaps evil-intentioned were also joined by those who were well-meaning and could rationalize that their actions were not selfish since they were helping their family or a small group of collaborators who were helping save the church in the worst of times.  After the first compromise and receipt of benefits all other collaboration was incrimental.  Other denominations would complain that Unitarians were always first to serve the state: the first to accept the combined seminary, the first to accept crippling quotas on the number of ministers who were to be trained, the first to limit the amount of time that a minister had in contact with the children of the congregation, etc.  Also the most feared collaborator and "Securitate man" who taught in the Unified Seminary was the Unitarian, Izak Vilmos. 

It was in this climate that Gellerd Imre work about Francis David (David Ferenc), the preacher who would die for his ideals.  Gellerd immulated David in his desire not to compromise in the essentials or to abandon his preaching of his discoveries; and when Gellerd was faced again with prison, he committed suicide--an admission of a fear of prison that was greater than his fear of an ultimate defeat by his own demoralized church.  He died a symbol to the 70 ministers who came to his funeral on January 5, 1980.  No representatives of his church hierarchy were there; especially not the bishop who by tradition should have preached the funeral oration.

Judit Gellerd, who smuggled some of her father's writings out of Romania and lost others to a special police sent by a corrupted Unitarian minister, continues her father's work.

 

"Whom God enlightened by His spirit must not be silent and must not hide the truth."   --Dávid Ferenc

"Neither the sword of popes, nor the cross, nor the image of death--nothing will halt the march of truth.--Dávid Ferenc