Bözödújfalu
Bözödújfalu is a Hungarian Székely village from Transylvania, Romania. It was first mentioned in 1566. Its medieval church was famous for its carved wooden Maria statue that belonged to the most precious Maria statue of Transylvania. (Now it is displayed elsewhere.) Now, the church is underwater.
It was the center of the Székely Sabbatarians in the 17th century: only the Transylvanian religious tolerance allowed the local birth of this small protestant religion. The last of the Transylvanian Sabbatarians lived here until most of them got converted to the Jewish faith in 1868.
The Germans destroyed them in World War II. The village was populated by mostly Hungarians in the 20th century. There is a Memorial Statue in the village and you can read this text on it, written by Sükösd Árpád in 1995:
“The village of Bözödújfalu rests in peace on the bottom of the lake. The inhabitants of its 180 houses are scattered around the world and still mourn their village. The evil executioners of the communist dictatory destroyed it and flooded it and thus they have wiped out an outstanding religious-historical community where families of different faiths and nationalities had lived in mutual love, peace, and respect for long centuries. Now the prayers of the Roman Catholic, Unitarian, Greek Catholic, and Székely Sabbatarian residents have all quiesced. Let this place be the symbol of peace between religions.”
Update from 2024: The rebuilt church of Bözödújfalu, flooded under communism, was consecrated
Let me translate the article about the event:
Bözödújfalu is now a symbol not only of village destruction, but also of the perseverance, unity and rebirth of the community, Hunor Kelemen said at a ceremony on Saturday marking the consecration of the rebuilt church of the Transylvanian village, which was flooded during the communist era.
According to the President of the Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Romania (RMDSZ), the story of Bözödújfalu is a warning for the entire Hungarian community in Transylvania. “If we don’t fight for our common future, if we are not able to fight for what is ours, what is not important to others, we will collapse like the tower of the church that was washed away,” he said.
He assessed that the flood control was just a pretext for the communists, the real purpose of the construction of the reservoir that flooded the Maros County settlement was to eliminate the traditional community.
“To eliminate traditions, destroy forms of community life, and create the rootless, unconnected new man. Familiar as it sounds, there is nothing new under the sun. 21st century Marxists in disguise would do the same to us today,” he noted.
According to Hunor Kelemen, the evicted and expelled community of Bözödújfalu is a true Transylvanian society, living together in peace, multi-religious and not indifferent to the destruction: every year on the first Saturday of August it gathers and not only remembers, but now also builds.
“Bözödújfalu has shown that buildings can be destroyed, but not the soul, not the faith, not the community. Therefore, Bözödújfalu is today not only a symbol of senseless, but also of deliberate destruction, but from today it is also a symbol of perseverance, rebirth and unity overcoming all odds”, concluded the President of the RMDSZ.
The Transylvanian Reformed Bishop Kató Béla pointed out that the rebuilt church is not only a memorial to the village that was submerged: it is a place of pilgrimage for all Hungarians in Transylvania who in the past decades or centuries have been forced to leave their home or place of birth, whose property was taken away and streets, neighbourhoods and town centres were condemned to demolition, “in order to erase all the memories that once characterised this region”.
Unitarian Bishop Kovács István warned that there is a much more serious danger of “flooding” and destruction of villages threatening Hungarian communities, coming from the “Western world, which has lost its values and perspectives”, and therefore the people of the Székely villages must be careful not to lose their faith and “spiritual towers”.
Bözödújfalu was submerged 30 years ago, but the church tower, which rose out of the water, remained a symbol of the village’s transformation for another two decades. The church, which collapsed in 2014, has now been rebuilt from public donations. The restoration was initiated by Csibi Attila Zoltán, mayor of neighbouring Erdőszentgyörgy. As he said, when he was elected mayor of Bözödújfalu, which no longer existed administratively, he could not let the flooded village disappear from sight, and felt obliged to create a lasting memorial to the village of the people who found refuge in Erdőszentgyörgy.
News of the reconstruction has brought support from everywhere from Canada to Australia and the Carpathian Basin. The foundation stone of the Church of the Unity was laid during the 2018 village meeting. A plaque on the site bears the names of more than 500 donators, but many anonymous supporters have also contributed by buying brick tokens.
At the ceremony on Saturday, it was said that Bözödújfalu once had five churches, and the Church of Unity, consecrated on Saturday, represents all the denominations of the former settlement. The building, a reminder of the destroyed village, is modelled on the ruined church that once stood there, half collapsed: the nave is not covered, the walls are covered with an exhibition on the past of Bözödújfalu, the spire is made of glass, and the only thing you can see from a distance is that the tiles are missing. The Church of Unity was blessed by Roman Catholic Archdeacon Péter Arthur, Unitarian Bishop Kovács István and Transylvanian Reformed Bishop Kató Béla.
Source: (MTI) https://www.vadhajtasok.hu/
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