On the 8th of June a farewell service was held in the Evangelical church in Rastislavovce dedicated to deceased emeritus bishop Ján Antal. The Bishop of Western District Milan Krivda served the sermon with an associate pastor Ivan Eľko. To pay their respect to the emeritus bishop J. Antal on behalf of ECAC in Slovakia came the General Supervisor P. Delinga and General Bishop M. Klátik, who blessed the deceased over his grave.
Emeritus Bishop of the Western District has departed on the 4th of June, two weeks before his 84th birthday.
Ján Antal was born on the 18th June 1926 in Klenovec. He studied at the high school in Rimavska Sobota and Tisovec and continued at the Evangelical Theological Faculty in Bratislava and at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. As a pastor, he served in Betliar and Rastislavovce. During socialist regime in the sixties J. Antal was prosecuted and imprisoned for two years. After this, he was forced to work as a worker and spent the next 22 years as one. He returned to the Service in 1986. Elected in 1991 to the position of bishop he remained in the Office until 1994. He worked as the managing editor of the theological magazine „Cirkevné listy“ and later became a member of the board of editors. Likewise, he was a member of the board of research on the Evangelic Theological Faculty of Commenius University in Bratislava and a member of translation committee that prepared the ecumenical translation of the Bible. In the year 2003, he became the doctor of theology after he passed the exams from New-testament theology and turned in the thesis on the topic “Issues of Christian hope in New Testament”. He was successful in the field of theology, translations, and he was often contributing to the church press.