Building the walls

Floor & isolation

On 19th of September we have started to concrete the floors.

"Joint Task Force"

We have also started to isolate the foundations, but the rain stopped us...

Preparations for the floor

We have unloaded the soil outside the walls and leveling the floor with balast. Soon we will isolate and concrete the floor.

Clapping shovels...

There is room for everyone ...

"Moving every rock..."

Behind bars... behind grids...

Heavy terrain ...

Construction area, view from the church tower. The bricks and mud-bricks are ready for the walls.

Unloading bricks

We have been unloading some bricks on Sept. 2.

Starting with 6 persons, finishing with 15. We have unloaded a truck of bricks within 2 hours.

30 cubic meters of brick, 1736 pieces on 28 racks. An average of 115 bricks for every person.

Some took one...

... the strongers two ...

... the younger even three ...

... and the youngest also helped us ...

Short history of our church

Table cover (1772)

• 1552 – Reformation spreading in the area
  
• 1560 – the entire village is taking the Reformed (Calvinist) religion
  
• 1587 – the first religious school
  
• 1597 – the first tincan for the Communion
  
• 1600 – the first known pastor: Márton Laki
• 1634 – silver plate: donations of Miklós Pethő, Zsófia Horváth, Ferenc Geszthy and Borbála Ország
• 1638 – silver Communion cup: donation of Pál Fráter and wife, Anna Barcsai
  
• 1737 – Communion and Baptism cans: donation of Ferenc Kassai and wife, Rebeka Ionási
  
• 1765 – the Register of births, marriages and deaths starts
  
• 1772 – first known curator: Ferenc Szentmiklósi; Reformed teacher: István Ölvendi
  
• 1776 – the pastor's house is built
  
• 1778 – they stop burying around the church building
  
• 1779 – renovation of the bellfry
  
• 1784 – renovation of the ceiling of the old church
  
• 1790 – building of a bell-tower instead of the separate bellfry
  
• 1800 – the church building gains its todays form by the appendance of the western part
  
• 1802 – new pulpit and benches
  
• 1803 – tincan with the monogramm of pastor János Csécsi
  
• 1804 – silver cup made by the silver plate from 1634

Church stamp (1804)

• 1808 – first presbiterial registers
  
• 1808 – larger bell made by the one donated by Anna Fráter in 1645
• 1808 – mechanical tower clock made by György Knapp from Oradea/Nagyvarad
• 1812 – the pulpit is moved from the southern wall to the northern
• 1829-77 – the longest staying (47 years) pastor József Csécsi Nagy
  
• 1834 – the church wall cracks at the 1800 connection because of earthquake
• 1848 – Miklós Dorkó, Reformed teacher is volunteer in the revolution
• 1849 – a small bell is given for war canons
  
• 1850 – the congregation reaches its highest number ever: 2000 members
  
• 1917 – the small bell from 1802 is given for war purposes
  
• 1926 – new small bell is donated by Ferenc Nyéki
  
• 1926 – András Szakács donates a church organ in the memory of his son died in WWI
  
• 1937-40 – Vilmos Balaskó - politically convicted - being second pastor
• 1938 – the shingled roof of the tower is changed to tin, and that of the the church to tiles
• 1953-57 – the renovation of the church
  
• 1958 – WWI&II memorial plaque inside the church
  
• 1965 – electricity introduced in the church
  
• 1973 – the larger bell cracked in 1971 is remade
• 1981 – the church's latest total (inside & outside) renovation
  
• 1986 – new church benches are made
  
• 1994 – the building of the former Reformed school is given back for the church
  
• 1995 – memorial plaque for János Keserűi Dajka (1580–1633), Reformed bishop and writer
  
• 1998-99 – repairment of the church roof and ceiling
• 2004 – restauration of our church organ, rebuilding the wooden galleries
• 2005 – renovation of the church inside; electrification and automatization of the bells
• 2006-07 – renovation of the former house of the Reformed teacher
• 2008 – starting the reconstruction of the 230 years old pastor's house
  

Church building (1977)

The 50th number of our newsletter

Our congregational newsletter, the Chesereu Christian Chronicle (Keserűi Keresztyén Krónika) has reached its 50th number. It was first published in October 2004, at the inauguration of the restaurated church organ and Reformation Day. The writing, editing, typing and copying is made by pastors of the congregation with the help of others. The folded-in-half A4 format paper is printed on the multifunctional laser-printer (offered as donation) of the church. The freely distributed newsletter is being published monthly, timed for festivities and at the beginning of the month. The number 0 of each year is a retrospect of the former year with all its events and statistics.


Among the goals of the newsletter is to inform and get our present and future church members closer to the congregations; to offer an insight to our church life for locals and those far; to deepen the knowledge about church life and history of our readers; to make our realizations with the help of God and our donators public as a good example; and to show that there is life in small rural congregations, too.


The content of our paper is made up of devotional readings, sermon abstracts, prayers and poems, but also church news, statistics, list of donations. We have series of church and local history, religious calendar and symbology, apologetical writings. We often form our content after the comments and wishes of our readers, the youth of our congregation is often writing articles by their own about their activities.


We distribute freely our newsletters at the exits of the church at the end of the Sunday or Holiday sermons. The retrospective number 0 is delivered to each Christian family in the village by the presbiters, and any number by the same way for those who need it. The pastor and the presbiters always bring the newsletter personally to old or ill persons, which is good ocasion to stengthen the community ties.


We also sent the printed or online edition of the newsletter for those who are interested or in connection with our church or village, and from the start of our weblog we try to bring the information up-to-date. We gladly accept all the opinions about our church or newsletter through e-mail or as blog-comments.

Numbers of the Hungarian language Krónika can be downloaded in pdf format from here:
http://erkeseru.googlepages.com