Obituaries - Oct. 30, 1999

Andreas Hegedus; Hungarian Prime Minister

Andreas Hegedus, 76, a former prime minister of Hungary who became a leading critic of Budapest’s pro-Soviet government. Hegedus was born to a poor rural family in Szilsarkany, 75 miles west of Budapest, and joined the Communist movement while in his teens. He rose through the ranks of the Communist Party, holding agricultural ministry posts and became Hungary’s youngest prime minister in 1955. That year, he joined other Soviet bloc heads of government in signing the treaty that established the Warsaw Pact, the Communist alliance organized after West Germany was admitted to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Amid popular demonstrations against Soviet domination, Hegedus signed a formal request for Soviet intervention to prevent the overthrow of Communist rule. Shortly afterward he was ousted as Hungarian prime minister and whisked off to Moscow, where he spent two years separated from his wife and children. After returning to Hungary, he served on the party’s ideological committee, although his politics had become increasingly independent. He was ousted from that position in 1968 after criticizing the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1973, he was expelled from the Communist Party. He then became one of the country’s best-known critics of the Soviet-backed government, publishing books abroad in several languages, including English. In a 1985 interview with Radio Free Europe, Hegedus said he regretted his action bringing Soviet troops into Hungary. “I was wrong, I am ashamed,” he said. On Oct. 23 in Budapest of a heart ailment.

Charles Philip Price; Episcopal Bishop

Charles Philip Price, 79, an Episcopal bishop who taught at Harvard University and contributed to a landmark revision of the Book of Common Prayer. A native of Pittsburgh, Price graduated from Harvard in 1941 and entered the Navy, where he was an engineer and served on two destroyers in the Pacific during World War II. He taught marine engineering at the U.S. Naval Academy from 1942 to 1943. He received a bachelor of divinity degree from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1949 and was ordained shortly thereafter. He received a doctor of theology degree from Union Theological Seminary in 1962. That year he returned to Harvard as the principal preacher at the university’s chapel and chairman of the school’s board of preachers, posts he held until 1972. As a member of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission, Price helped reshape the Book of Common Prayer, the Anglican Church’s primary worship guide, writing the introduction to the 1979 version. A piano student in his youth, Price wrote the lyrics for more than a dozen hymns in the current Episcopal hymnal. On Oct. 13 in Alexandria, Va., of cancer.