Judit Varga – Photo: BZT / Nóra Halász

Justice minister: ‘Need for Christian faith growing’

"There is a growing need for Christian faith and values and it is especially important that we should protect them among all circumstances and pass on to posterity," the justice minister said in Teglas, in north-eastern Hungary, on Sunday.

Judit Varga attended the consecration ceremony of the Greek Catholic church after renovation in the town, and said in her address that “we live in an age of dangers” not only including the war in a neighbouring country but “the European Union building a Europe rejecting traditional European values”. “But we believe that Europe is supported by its Jewish-Christian roots,” she said, adding that Europe’s “building stones” were Christian communities, families, nations, and the traditional churches.

Referring to the war in Ukraine as the “greatest, most difficult and acute problem” for the eastern part of Europe, she said the Hungarian government had advocated a pro-peace position since the beginning of the conflict. “Any bloodshed is pointless and disputed issues must be settled at the negotiating table,” she said. The government takes responsibility for Ukraine’s 150,000-strong ethnic Hungarian minority, who would be “directly jeopardised if Hungary allowed the transit of weapons deliveries through its territory into Ukraine. She said, however, that the government was “fulfilling all moral obligations”: it had helped over one million refugees fleeing Ukraine and had sent 3,100 tonnes of aid worth 7.2 billion forints (EUR 18m) to Transcarpathia since the outbreak of the war. The aid programme the minister called “the largest humanitarian action in Hungary’s history”, would be continued “as long as necessary”, she said.

In another development, Varga said the government had provided assistance to the construction of 150 churches and the renovation of 3,000 chapels in the country in the past 13 years. Hungary’s largest churches currently run 350 kindergartens, 546 primary schools and 255 secondary schools, the latter serving 55,000 students, one fourth of the country’s total.

The government has contributed 40 million forints to finance the decorative painting of the Greek Catholic church in Teglas.

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