Hungarian Churches Deny Minister's Claims of Silence Due to State Funding

Hungarian historical churches have refuted claims made by a government minister that state funding has led to their silence. Minister Tarr Zoltán suggested that churches were often compelled to remain quiet in exchange for state support in recent years.

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I hope that was just a rhetorical turn of phrase, with which he wished to express that under their governance, church service will have greater scope and freedom.

However, leaders from the Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran churches have stated they did not receive political directives. They assert that their decisions were made within their own authority. Evangelical Bishop Szemerei János expressed hope that the minister's remarks about "relearning church independence" were merely rhetorical, aiming to signify greater freedom for church service under the current government.

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The churches' vulnerability stems from the fact that even after the change of regime, the state did not fully return the assets that were once taken, which could have formed the basis for independent operation.

Bishop Szemerei acknowledged that church dependence on the government is a real issue, but traced its roots to the communist era rather than recent times. He told Mandiner that the state's failure to fully return assets confiscated during the communist period, which could have formed the basis for independent operation, contributes to the churches' vulnerability. While supporting the goal of reducing dependence, he stressed the need to see the specific details of any such plan.

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I sincerely wish that the plan to end dependence on the government will be realized, although it would be good to see the details as well.

The article questions how greater autonomy can be guaranteed if the funding system and financial dependence remain largely unchanged, as the government has not indicated plans to address property ownership issues. Nacsa Lőrinc, deputy group leader of KDNP, countered that the Orbán government inherited a "seventy-year backlog" in church policy, needing to rebuild church institutions and properties that had deteriorated since the post-communist transition.

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Seventy years of backlog had to be made up by the Orbán government.