Transylvania Reformed Assistance Committee
The Beauty
&
the Burden
of Transylvania
Located at the eastern edge of Europe, within the crescent of the Carpathian Mountains, lies Transylvania, what the Romans called the land over, or beyond (trans) the forest (sylva). For well over a thousand years it constituted the eastern half of the Hungarian empire, and after the Reformation the eastern most reach of the Reformed faith.
In 1920, following the First Word War, the Western powers took Transylvania from Hungary and gave it to the Romanian nation. leaving millions of Hungarian people, and over 1,000 Reformed Churches as a minority people as a minority in subjection to a people that understood neither their culture or their faith. But the most sever effects came about came when Communism took control of the land.
The effects communism has had upon the churches and congregations in Transylvania, Romania are devastating. The rebuilding of these areas is certainly a large undertaking. TRAC is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to offering assistance to the people of these areas in rebuilding their churches, homes, families and lives. If you would like to assist in this effort, please contact TRAC with your donations and indicate whether the gift is for a specific TRAC ministry or the general fund. All efforts are directly coordinated through the Hungarian Reformed Church and national personnel in the ministry areas. Members of TRAC (at their own expense) visit the churches to verify need and progress of projects at least annually. On behalf of the churches and people of Transylvania, we thank you for your assistance in this work of the Lord.
The Hungarian Reformed Church
and TRAC
Before Communism there were nearly two million members in the Transylvanian Reformed Churches, while according to the 1992 Romanian census, there are now approximately 800,000 Calvinist (Reformed) people left. Many, however, are in churches which are in “diaspora” (on the point of extinction). It is in these churches that TRAC has chosen to work, with the prayer that by the grace of God a way may be found to restore them to strength once again in this eastern most extension of the Reformed faith maintained.
The Transylvania Reformed Assistance Committee was organized after the collapse of Communism, by members of various Reformed denominations in America with the purpose of helping the Reformed churches in Transylvania recover from the effects of Communism, and so encourage them to retain their historical commitment to the Scriptures as set forth in their creeds, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Second Helvetic Confession.
During those early years, many trips were made to Transylvania in an effort to meet the people, and assess their needs. It was in doing this that we learned of the “diaspora” churches, scattered like lost 
sheep amid the beautiful hills and fertile valleys of the land, and now depressed from the ruinous effects of Communism. Most of the young people are no longer there, leaving the elderly to till the fields without adequate equipment, seed, livestock, funds or even the proper knowledge as to how to work the land. And so the churches have been slowly dying as their older ministers have passed away, and the number of students allowed to graduate from seminary were too few to supply any but the larger congregations, leaving the small villages with their elderly people without the spiritual and economic support they need. (see also Discovering the Mezöség)
It 
was particularly providential that we met Dr. Dezso Buzogány, professor of church history at the Reformed Seminary, which has been preparing ministers for over 400 years. He agreed to work with us, and eventually developed a plan by which, if we could supply the necessary expenses, the several hundred students studying at the seminary, would go out into the villages on weekends to preach in the "diaspora churches" in the nearby Mezöség.