Government official: ‘Preserving our Hungarian identity, culture vitally important’

“The easiest way we can preserve our culture … is by making it a part of our everyday lives by enrolling our children in Hungarian schools … and observing our customs,” Arpad Janos Potapi said at the event.

“This is all the more important today because we are seeing a worrisome process in Europe,” he said.

“They want to settle foreign people [here], they’re tearing down millennium-old treasures and churches and they reject Christianity, the set of values that is a part of our Europeanness.”

If Hungarian cultural life stays strong, then the Hungarian community will be able “to accomplish big things in other areas, too,” the state secretary said.

“Respecting and passing on our culture from generation to generation is about respecting our ancestors and ourselves.”