This post is a response to a great question in a comment from yesterday's post about Abbot Vendel Endrédy, who chose to leave Hungary after the communists took power but returned shortly afterward with the full knowledge that he faced arrest, imprisonment, and torture once he stepped back into the country.
I am publishing the response here to draw attention to a sorely neglected aspect of what it means to fight in the spiritual war and as an example of how the spiritual war is won.
The comment that motivated my response is a simple question:
For what purpose did he return, or why did he feel he had to return?
I could answer that question by asking one of my own. The communists could have simply killed Endrédy before he left the country or upon his return – why didn’t they?
The short answer to your question: Endrédy understood that the fundamental nature of the war in which he was embroiled was spiritual, not merely political or ideological.
He recognized that the worldly cause against the communists was lost for the time being, but that the spiritual cause against the communists was not. Endrédy understood that being "free for" God meant infinitely more than being "free from" the communists.
In the interest of keeping yesterday’s blog post brief, I skipped over the details of Endrédy's departure and subsequent return to Hungary in 1948, but I'll expand on a few of those details now.
Though it was technically possible to escape from Hungary via clandestine means after the war, men of Endrédy's stature were on the communists' radar, so to speak. This made it virtually impossible for them to leave the country undetected.
The only way men like Endrédy could leave was to petition the communists for a special passport that would allow them to travel abroad for a set time.
Put another way, people like Endrédy had to ask the communists for permission to leave. The communists would only grant this permission if the applicants promised, under oath, to return before the passport expired.
The true spiritual aims of worldly evil reveal themselves in such arrangements. As stated above, the communists only granted permission to those who swore oaths to return. Here's the catch, people who were granted such passports knew they would be arrested the moment they stepped back into Hungary. Thus, the tacit spiritual objectives behind the travel permits become remarkably clear.
The communists did not want the travel permit owners to return; they wanted the permit owners to embrace the freedom they had been "granted" on the communists' terms.
Thus, those who chose to stay abroad under these conditions were doubly defeated.
First, because their physical “escape” was not an escape at all. On the contrary, it was little more than an admission of defeat and a confirmation of the communists’ worldly gains. Second, those who left for good under the conditions the communists established spiritually affirmed that they preferred freedom from the communists over freedom for God.
Endrédy understood that his return was a thumb in Satan’s eye. On the one hand, it was an annoying challenge to the supposed nature of the worldly gains the communists had made. On the other hand, it demonstrated Endrédy’s willingness to fight and eventually win the spiritual war.
The communists could have simply killed Endrédy upon his return, but they didn’t. Their excuse was that they did not want to make a martyr of him, which is partially true.
The last thing the communists wanted to do was kill men like Endrédy while they were aligned with God.
Though the communists openly rejected the spiritual, their actions reveal the spiritual objectives underpinning their actions. Death was inadequate on its own; damnation was the ultimate aim. Death without damanation was a loss, not a gain.
So they went to work on Endrédy and did everything they could to break him spiritually. They arrested him, humiliated him, degraded him, and tortured him, but Endrédy would not break. He remained firmly aligned with God despite the decades' long ordeal the communists inflicted upon him.
From a purely temporal perspective, Endrédy could be considered a tragic figure, but from the spiritual perspective -- the perspective of "real" Reality -- Endrédy emerged victorious from his war with evil because he understood the spiritual reality of what he was involved in.
He showed the communists that his spiritual freedom was more powerful than the freedom they had offered him.
Moreover, he also demonstrated the superiority of his God-aligned agency. In spite of all of their power, terror, victories, and gains in the world, the communists could not secure the one and only thing they truly wanted from Vendel Endrédy.
He proved that his freedom was ultimately greater than their power.
I am publishing the response here to draw attention to a sorely neglected aspect of what it means to fight in the spiritual war and as an example of how the spiritual war is won.
The comment that motivated my response is a simple question:
For what purpose did he return, or why did he feel he had to return?
I could answer that question by asking one of my own. The communists could have simply killed Endrédy before he left the country or upon his return – why didn’t they?
The short answer to your question: Endrédy understood that the fundamental nature of the war in which he was embroiled was spiritual, not merely political or ideological.
He recognized that the worldly cause against the communists was lost for the time being, but that the spiritual cause against the communists was not. Endrédy understood that being "free for" God meant infinitely more than being "free from" the communists.
In the interest of keeping yesterday’s blog post brief, I skipped over the details of Endrédy's departure and subsequent return to Hungary in 1948, but I'll expand on a few of those details now.
Though it was technically possible to escape from Hungary via clandestine means after the war, men of Endrédy's stature were on the communists' radar, so to speak. This made it virtually impossible for them to leave the country undetected.
The only way men like Endrédy could leave was to petition the communists for a special passport that would allow them to travel abroad for a set time.
Put another way, people like Endrédy had to ask the communists for permission to leave. The communists would only grant this permission if the applicants promised, under oath, to return before the passport expired.
The true spiritual aims of worldly evil reveal themselves in such arrangements. As stated above, the communists only granted permission to those who swore oaths to return. Here's the catch, people who were granted such passports knew they would be arrested the moment they stepped back into Hungary. Thus, the tacit spiritual objectives behind the travel permits become remarkably clear.
The communists did not want the travel permit owners to return; they wanted the permit owners to embrace the freedom they had been "granted" on the communists' terms.
Thus, those who chose to stay abroad under these conditions were doubly defeated.
First, because their physical “escape” was not an escape at all. On the contrary, it was little more than an admission of defeat and a confirmation of the communists’ worldly gains. Second, those who left for good under the conditions the communists established spiritually affirmed that they preferred freedom from the communists over freedom for God.
Endrédy understood that his return was a thumb in Satan’s eye. On the one hand, it was an annoying challenge to the supposed nature of the worldly gains the communists had made. On the other hand, it demonstrated Endrédy’s willingness to fight and eventually win the spiritual war.
The communists could have simply killed Endrédy upon his return, but they didn’t. Their excuse was that they did not want to make a martyr of him, which is partially true.
The last thing the communists wanted to do was kill men like Endrédy while they were aligned with God.
Though the communists openly rejected the spiritual, their actions reveal the spiritual objectives underpinning their actions. Death was inadequate on its own; damnation was the ultimate aim. Death without damanation was a loss, not a gain.
So they went to work on Endrédy and did everything they could to break him spiritually. They arrested him, humiliated him, degraded him, and tortured him, but Endrédy would not break. He remained firmly aligned with God despite the decades' long ordeal the communists inflicted upon him.
From a purely temporal perspective, Endrédy could be considered a tragic figure, but from the spiritual perspective -- the perspective of "real" Reality -- Endrédy emerged victorious from his war with evil because he understood the spiritual reality of what he was involved in.
He showed the communists that his spiritual freedom was more powerful than the freedom they had offered him.
Moreover, he also demonstrated the superiority of his God-aligned agency. In spite of all of their power, terror, victories, and gains in the world, the communists could not secure the one and only thing they truly wanted from Vendel Endrédy.
He proved that his freedom was ultimately greater than their power.
RSS Feed
