The Hungarian Fellowship for Evangelical Students (MEKDSZ) is already part of Hungarian history. It made its first appearance on is pages on October 23rd, 1904 and then in 1949, it disappeared under the (de)pressing clouds of political development. After that, Bible studying fellowships formed by students appear here and there for a time, until 1989, when MEKDSZ resurfaced as a legal organisation with nationwide activity. Currently, it has 30 different student groups at different universities and other institutes of higher learning around the country. History is -- of course -- also the here and now, so we continue to shape our patch of it as best as we can.

Let me lead you on a little tour of the MEKDSZ history which is truly His (Jesus') story:

• John Mott, later Nobel Prize laureate, gave a boost to the development of MEKDSZ by his visit in 1909.
• The student publication "Diákvilág" (= Students' World) launched in 1909, which during WWI became "Háborús Diákvilág" (=Students' World at War), became favourite reading for Hungarian soldiers, enlisted students, fighting on the different fronts of the "war to end all wars".
• The first 5 poems of poet Sándor Weörös were published in the MEKDSZ periodical "Erõ" (= Strength).
• The Edison palace -- called "Diákok Háza" (= House of Students) -- in Hársfa Street in Budapest served as hall of residence and scientific workshop for 110 students. The sociological work "Elsüllyedt Falu a Dunántúlon" (= Sunk village in Transdanubia) was prepared here among others.
• The organisation was renamed "Magyar Diákok Pro Christo Szövetsége" (= Pro Christo Union of Hungarian Students) in 1925.
• Intervarsity Fellowship held an international conference in Budapest in 1937.
• Karácsony Sándor became the president of the organisation in 1945.

Information on the recent history and the present situation of MEKDSZ can be found on other pages of this website.

Governments and political systems come and go, end up in the history books or on history's rubbish heap. But does man really change? Can our goals and mission change? Here is an excerpt from 1928, from the pages of "Diákvilág", addressed to school leavers:

With what aims, goals does today's student leave school? Does he say: I am going to aim at a petty bourgeois existence? Up to now, I could live in relative luxury, because I could waste... my father's money...the plentiful time given for studying... But now the days of this great freedom are over. From now I have to make ends meet on the basis of my salary, which means I have to economise. I cannot dispose freely over most of my time, because it belongs -- most regrettably -- to the office. My health and feelings are no longer mine, they belong to my family... What say the Hungarian nation to all this? If it could speak, it would surely say: "You could hear it enough times, it has become a common place, that we have paid for your student years. We did not begrudge this sacrifice, because we have hoped that you would teach us the secret of generous living and now you come back to be among us singing that you would be a philistine? (This is an allusion to the popular Hungarian school leavers' song: "Ballag már a vén diák... filiszter leszek magam is" -- translator). From now on, every empty church, every full pub, every untouched file at your office, the multitude of bodies sent to their death by carelessness and every uncultivated soul will be a witness against you. You have cheated us wickedly, you have abused our trust, and we no longer believe you or those that follow after you."

This is a voice of the past. What about our present?

There are presently some 170 thousand students studying at Hungary's universities and other institutes of higher learning. They will form a decisive force in future society, they will be tomorrow's engineers, doctors, politicians, teachers, lawyers, economists etc. Like it or not. They have no choice in this matter. The aim of MEKDSZ is to help them become truly responsible professionals and Christians already during their formative university years.