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László Tőkés, (born April 1, 1952), is an ethnic Hungarian citizen of Romania, now bishop of the Hungarian Reformed Church in Királyhágó-mellék, Transylvania, Romania and President of the Hungarian National Council of Transylvania (Hungarian: "Erdélyi Magyar Nemzeti Tanács").
An effort to transfer him from his post as an assistant pastor in Timişoara (Hungarian: "Temesvár") and to evict him from his church flat helped trigger the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which overthrew Nicolae Ceauşescu and spelled the end of the communist era in Romania.
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Family
Tőkés is the son of István Tőkés. He is married to Edit Tőkés, and had a son, who was apparently killed at the beginning of the Revolution.
Priestly dissident
Like his father, who was in 1989 a former deputy bishop of the Hungarian Reformed Church, he was a persistent critic of the Ceauşescu regime. While a pastor in the Transylvanian town of Dej, he contributed in to the clandestine Hungarian-language journal Ellenpontok (1981-82). An article there on abuses of human rights in Romania appears to have been the occasion of his first harassment by the Securitate. He was reassigned to the village of Sânpietru de Câmpie, but refused to go and instead spent two years living in his parents' house in Cluj (Hungarian: "Kolozsvár"). [Deletant, online, p.49-50]
His situation was discussed in the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which led indirectly to his appointment to be assistant pastor in Timişoara, where he gave sermons that opposed the Romanian national government's program of systematization, which proposed radical restructuring of the infrastructure of Romanian towns and villages. This was seen by some as a particular threat to Hungarian villages, although Tőkés sermons did not single this out, calling for solidarity between Hungarians and Romanians. [Deletant, online, p.50]
In the summer of 1988, he organized opposition to systematization among Hungarian Reformed Church pastors, again drawing the strong attention of the Securitate. After the Securitate objected to an October 1988 cultural festival organized jointly with the Roman Catholic church in Timişoara, Bishop László Papp banned all youth activities in the Oradea (the region of which Timişoara is part); Tőkés nonetheless collaborated with the bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Church on another festival in spring 1989. [Deletant, online, p.50]
On March 31, 1989, Papp ordered Tőkés to stop preaching in Timişoara and move to the isolated parish of Mineu, an order Tőkés refused, and his congregation supported him. The bishop began civil proceedings to evict him from his church flat. His power was cut off, his ration book taken away, but his parishioners continued to support and provision him, some of them being arrested and beaten for their trouble. At least one, Erno Ujvarossy, was found murdered in woods outside Timişoara on September 14, and Tőkés's father was briefly arrested. [Deletant, online, p.51]
A court ordered Tőkés's eviction on October 20. He appealed. On November 2 four attackers armed with knives broke into his flat; Securitate agents looked on while he and his friends fought off the assailants. The Romanian ambassador was summoned to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry and told of the Hungarian government's concern for his safety. His appeal was turned down, and his eviction set for Saturday December 15. [Deletant, online, p.51]
December 1989
As December 15 approached, Tőkés's parishioners began something of a vigil outside his flat, refusing two guards' orders to move along. On December 15, a human chain was formed around the block; the militia were unable to gain access. Tőkés thanked the crowd but advised them to leave, but several hundred stayed in groups close to the flat. Edit, who was pregnant at the time, fell ill. On December 16, the family doctor appeared to see Edit. Within half an hour, the mayor of Timişoara appeared with three more doctors, hoping to persuade Edit to head to a hospital. On the advice of their family doctor, she refused. [Deletant, online, p.52]
Shortly afterwards workmen arrived to repair the damaged windows and door to the flat; presumably the mayor was hoping to defuse matters, but the crowds actually grew, with young Romanians joining the Hungarian parishioners. Tőkés spoke with the mayor, and again urged the crowd to disperse. The crowd remained; the mayor stormed away, returned at noon, and promised that Tőkés would not be evicted. The crowd remained; some of them accused Tőkés of collaborating with the authorities and demanded a written retraction of Tőkés's transfer and eviction. The mayor promised to produce this within an hour; if he intended actually to do so, it proved impossible on a Saturday. [Deletant, online, p.52-53]
After various negotiations with the mayor and the deputy mayor and the involvement of various delegations, the mayor gave an ultimatum for the crowd to disperse by 5pm or face fire-brigade water cannons. Tőkés again pleaded with the crowd to disperse, but, possibly convinced that he was acting under threats from the Securitate, they refused. The crowd beckoned him to leave his apartment and come down to the street. He refused, presumably fearful of being seen as the leader of this resistance. [Deletant, online, p.53]
5pm came and went without water cannons. By 7pm the crowds extended for several blocks and included many students from the local polytechnic and university, Romanians and Hungarians in a human chain first singing hymns, but about 7:30 launching into the patriotic song Deşteaptă-te, române ("Wake up, O, Romanian!"), banned in 1947 at the beginning of the communist dictatorship and sung during the November 1987 protests in Braşov. [Deletant, online, p.53-54]
In Deletant's words, "The Hungarian protest had now become a Romanian revolt." Cries were raised, "Down with Ceauşescu!", "Down with the regime!", and "Down with Communism!". The crowd moved out from around Tőkés's flat and church, crossed a bridge, and headed for the city centre and Communist Party headquarters, where they threw stones before militia drove them back toward the church around 10 pm and the water cannons finally came into play. However, the crowd seized the cannons, broke them up, and threw the parts into the river Bega. A general spirit of roving riot ensued. [Deletant, online, p.54]
Demonstrations continued the next two days. On Monday, December 17, the army fired into the crowd. The number of casualties has been a matter of dispute; early reports were undoubtedly exaggerated; Deletant says 122 (presumably meaning only deaths, not injuries), citing Adevărul, 21 December 1991, p.2-3. On Elena Ceauşescu's orders, 40 of the dead were transported by lorry to Bucharest and cremated to make identification impossible. [Deletant, online, p.54]
On December 18, tens of thousands of industrial workers in Timişoara peacefully took up the protest; by December 20 the city was effectively in insurrection. [Deletant, online, p.54]
References
- Deletant, Dennis, Romania under communist rule (1999). Center for Romanian Studies in cooperation with the Civic Academy Foundation, (Iaşi, Romania; Portland, Oregon), ISBN 9739839282. An earlier form of this can be found online as Romania 1948-1989: A Historical Overview (http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_14/intro_deletant.pdf); see especially p.49 et. seq. in the online version (cited in the text as [Deletant, online].hu:TĹ‘kĂ©s LászlĂł