Standing by the Nicene Creed. The Confession of Debrecen New Orthodoxy Movement (1875). Its Emergence, Theological Views and the Encounter with Liberal Theology in Hungary

Hungarian Reformed Christians experienced the emergence of liberal theology coming from mainly German, Swiss and Dutch centres of higher learning during the course of the nineteenth century. This new theological trend which repeated most of the non-orthodox teachings, often labelled as heresy during the patristic era, or false teaching in the medieval Catholic church, gained currency owing to the impact of Enlightenment in Europe. The Zeitgeist with its buoyant and dominant ideology named liberalism promoted precious values such as freedom, progress, science and development that married in various robe and forms with different Christian worldviews most notable what came to be called liberal theology ‘liberale theologie’ in Germany, ‘moderne theologie’ in the Netherlands or theology of science of religion (vallástudományi teológia) in Hungary. The challenge posed to the core doctrine of Christian theology by liberal theology had an incredible impact Hungarian Protestantism and the debate led to the emergence of Confession of Debrecen by new-orthodox theologians in 1875. The Confession of a peculiar expression that is somewhat similar to the Nicaean Creed yet it is different in some aspects. This paper uncovers how the debated evolved, the confession came into being and then it explicates the creed itself drawing lines of explanations to core issues of freedom of examination, semper reformanda and the voluntary obligation of accepting a faith upon entering a religious community. In so doing, the paper also throws light on some of the doctrinal differences of both theological camps, and underlines that even liberal theologians created doctrines despite of their desperate and good intentioned endeavour to reformulate the old Christian belief such as incarnation resurrection and alike.