Novak in Australia: Families ‘crucial for renewal’

“It is children that make us continuously renew ourselves and it is they who renew families, thus making the family a basis for survival and renewal,” the president said. “Families are considered in Hungary as of eternal value,” Novak said, adding that “all Hungarian children, no matter where in the world they may be born, are recognised [as Hungarian].”

Referring to Hungary’s system of granting preferential citizenship to ethnic kin, Novak said the number of “Hungarians enjoying their Hungarian citizenship once more” has now reached 1.1 million.

Concerning Reformation Day, the president said Christians and specifically Christian decision-makers had a duty to recognise and distinguish “that which is of eternal value and that which can be and should be renewed”.

Hungarians consider their nation, language, faith, national, linguistic, faith and gender as of eternal value, she said. These cannot be chosen or replaced, she said, adding that though Hungarians renew themselves, they remain who they are.

Novak noted that alongside, her official meetings in Australia, she had also met with local Hungarians, marked the anniversary of the 1956 anti-communist uprising in Melbourne and inaugurated a church and a community centre in Marsden. She is scheduled to meet with diaspora Hungarians in Sydney as well.