Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán talks about the Eucharistic Congress, post-earthquake relief and the Christian heritage of Central European nations

“Demo-Christian politics also has its mandate in relation to Christian culture. Christianity, first of all, created a free man. Therefore, we must first and foremost protect human dignity. Then, Christianity created a Christian family. We must protect the concept of the Christian family. Furthermore, Christianity has created nations in this part of the world.”

The World Eucharistic Congress, as the first major international church event to take place in Hungary after the pandemic fast in September, the millions of aid that come to Croatia from Hungary after the devastating earthquakes, the Christian heritage that both Hungary and Croatia are proud of, In its 59-year history, the Voice of the Council has made an exception and interviewed the president of one foreign government – the first man of the Hungarian executive, Viktor Orbán. He first received the journalists of Glas Koncil on the terrace of the palace where the government offices are located, which offers a view of the Budapest panorama, and then the two-hour cordial conversation continued in the premises of the imposing government library. It was not a typical conversation of a statesman with foreign journalists. It was a conversation among Christians.

Croatian believers are staring at the World Eucharistic Congress to be held in September in Budapest and all events related to it. We were very surprised when in the past few days we were able to listen to the controversy that appeared in the media that Pope Francis does not want to meet with you. It later turned out to be fake news. Can you interpret what happened?

The first lesson is that even the Holy Father is not protected from false news. The Hungarian position was quite clear: the Holy Father is at the same time the head of state and the head of the Church. As head of state, he deserves the greatest honours, and if he comes as head of the Catholic Church, we will accept him with Christian humility. The World Eucharistic Congress is not a Hungarian event, but an international event taking place in Hungary and attended by the Pope. Therefore, it was not clear what exactly would happen in the protocol sense. Namely, if he had come only to Hungary, everything would have been clear, but this is an international event. I, on the other hand, am a participant in a martial art called politics, and the fights are everyday – all day and night. To put it pictorially, when only a small slit is opened in the armour, it is immediately fired at that spot. The fact that this is an international event that has left some ambiguities in the protocol sense has opened a gap. And it so happened that anti-church and anti-Christian circles started firing into that slit.

How could such a misunderstanding have happened at all?

Indeed, there is a difference in the attitudes and approaches of the Holy Father and the Hungarian government towards migration, which is obvious and visible to the whole world. We are strongly against migration, and the Catholic Church has its own position. From this it is easy to construct the story that the Holy Father and the Prime Minister of Hungary “do not understand”, “do not agree”, and that, finally, “they do not even want to see each other”.

If someone has a majority, but does not strive for the truth with that majority, what will the majority do for him? It’s just profanation. If, on the other hand, one advocates the truth but cannot move the majority, how will he act in the interest of that truth? It is a key challenge of Christian politics that emerges in democratic conditions.

However, the fake news about the events in September in Budapest is not what hurts me the most. I am especially sorry that I will not be able to attend the beatification of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, which takes place on the same day in Poland as the World Eucharistic Congress in Hungary. Namely, we highly value Polish Catholics.

Here, this year marks the 30th anniversary of the magnificent visit of Pope John Paul II. Hungary. His cry and prayer for Hungary to be born again after years of dictatorship and totalitarianism is unforgettable. Has Hungary been able to be reborn in the last three decades?

We can’t talk about a revival yet, although a lot has changed. And the spirituality of the state has changed greatly. Life is valued much more, but it does not yet receive full respect. There is attention and interest in the Church’s and God’s message, but there are no mass conversions. I can say that there was no revival, but we are in a much better condition compared to what it was, and the chance of a revival is higher today than it was 30 years ago. However, in quantitative terms, we cannot talk about mass conversion or new spirituality, because Hungary is still for the most part a secularized state, which is looking for a way to God, looking for support on that path.

The Polish pope also meant political deliverance because deliverance is an act of freedom, he brought us that deliverance in a political sense. We think we would not have got rid of the communists if we did not have a Polish Pope. We may or may not be believers, but we can honor the Polish pope as a saint. Personally, I can thank him a lot, we met on several occasions and he hinted to me very important things. He always encouraged me. We felt his great and deep love for the Hungarians.

At the heart of the Pope’s arrival in Hungary is the Eucharist. Although Calvinists and Catholics do not share the same attitude toward the Eucharist, they share many Christian values. What values for Hungarian Christians do you consider key to affirmation after the September meeting with the Pope?

We Calvinists also have worship, and we share bread and wine, but our liturgy is first and foremost a remembrance. However, I experience and understand the beauty of the Eucharist because I have a Catholic for a wife. In our culture, in marriages in which they are spouses of different denominations, children follow their parents, according to gender. So I have four Catholic daughters – which means I live with five Catholic women under the same roof – and I have one Calvinist son. Thus, in our country, the coexistence of Catholics and Calvinists takes place under the same roof, in the same community of love. I will add to this that one of my daughters married the son of a Greek Catholic priest. Here, Catholics say, “The problem is that the mantle of our Lord Jesus Christ is torn to pieces.” Many of us long for Christian unity. Of course, I don’t just mean Western Latin Christianity, but Christianity as a whole, including Orthodox. We will tell the Holy Father that Christianity in Hungary is not a matter of choice, but it is our destiny. We don’t need any argumentation, that’s how it is, that’s how it is determined. In addition, the world around us is hostile to all of us, you Catholics and me a Calvinist. Now a cultural, moreover, civilizational struggle is at work; the struggle for the soul of Europe and the future of Europe is there, it is happening. The saying goes that theological debates are seldom held in trenches – because we are all attacked. That is why prayer is needed for the complete unity of Christians, including the Orthodox, because without cooperation we cannot keep Christianity in Europe. In addition, the world around us is hostile to all of us, you Catholics and me a Calvinist. Now a cultural, moreover, civilizational struggle is at work; the struggle for the soul of Europe and the future of Europe is there, it is happening. The saying goes that theological debates are seldom held in trenches – because we are all attacked. That is why prayer is needed for the complete unity of Christians, including the Orthodox, because without cooperation we cannot keep Christianity in Europe. In addition, the world around us is hostile to all of us, you Catholics and me a Calvinist. Now a cultural, moreover, civilizational struggle is at work; the struggle for the soul of Europe and the future of Europe is there, it is happening. The saying goes that theological debates are seldom held in trenches – because we are all attacked. That is why prayer is needed for the complete unity of Christians, including the Orthodox, because without cooperation we cannot keep Christianity in Europe.

Allow me an example that is close to me. When we won the 2010 elections, I was still working in parliament, my office was there. I was preparing to take the oath and give my first speech, I went out the door and saw a priest from Medjugorje, who said to me, “I have come to bless you before you take the oath.” Medjugorje to bless him! We prayed together and after that I took the oath. So these are the things that happen in the Christian world, if we let them happen.

You mention the soul of Europe, the spiritual struggle. Is the current political struggle actually the materialization of a spiritual struggle waged in the background?

Politics takes place on three levels simultaneously. The first level is practical: it deals with issues related to power, the acceptance of the budget, the appointment of persons, the maintenance of order. I would call the second level a vision, because all national communities must have a vision. What will happen to the Hungarians, not tomorrow morning, but in five, 10, 20 years? However, behind everything there is another broader dimension, the world of transcendence. We live in that dimension as well, and it is a part of life. In Hungarian political thought, this is called the problem of majority and truth. It could be said like this: if someone has a majority, but does not strive for the truth with that majority, what will the majority do for him? It’s just profanation. If, on the other hand, one advocates the truth but cannot move the majority, how will he act in the interest of that truth? It is a key challenge of Christian politics that emerges in democratic conditions. To simplify, we no longer have sacral kings anointed by God, so we must exist in a democracy, connecting the majority and the truth. It is not easy, but it is possible. Demo-Christian politics also has its mandate in relation to Christian culture. Christianity, first of all, created a free man. Therefore, we must first and foremost protect human dignity. Then, Christianity created a Christian family. We must protect the concept of the Christian family. Furthermore, Christianity has created nations in this part of the world. If we, the Hungarians, had not followed Christianity for a thousand years, we would have disappeared, so we must also protect the nation. But we must also protect religious communities and the Church. To summarize, our task is not to protect theological principles, it is the mission of the Church, but the great Christian achievements of civilization. And when I protect them, I fight not only with the sword, I use not only power, but also arguments.

Thought factories in the western world continue to produce desires for people, according to whom it is better to go elsewhere, because living conditions are better elsewhere and we have no obligations to our country. I think the next decade will be marked by epidemics and migrations. All of this has a severe, perhaps fatal, effect on European Christian Democracy.

The best thing about the political profession is that there is no job description. And I have my own definition. Personally, I think politics is a matter of power, and power is the ability to act together. Political power creates joint action through political action. For example, elections, the constitution or otherwise. However, we must not forget God’s authority either, because joint action cannot be achieved only by political means, but can also be established spiritually. It is, in fact, the task of the Church and of the servants of the Church: to establish joint action by leading. That is the task of the Church, and we do it by political means. When these two sides are connected, great results come. For this reason, we will never accept the separation of Church and State as interpreted in the West. The Hungarian constitution states that the state and the Church act separately,

How much does it cost you to swim against the dominant European political current?

If we were in the Middle Ages and needed to write some slogan on a flag that would describe my work and my philosophy, I would write, “Only dead fish swim with electricity.” Whoever swims with the multicultural fashion of this time loses everything that matters in life. True, everyone who goes against the current causes themselves a lot of problems. We pay a high price. Hungary pays a high price for not signing the Istanbul Convention, then refusing to support any Cold War policy; we pay a high price for not kicking the Russian president every day together with Westerners, but giving him the respect he deserves as president; we pay a high price for protecting the Christian model of the family; that LGBT madness has no place here; then we pay a high price for our position on migration and we pay a high price for not accepting the Brussels bureaucracy, but first and foremost as a counterweight to building Central European cooperation. So we really pay a high price. But if we don’t pay that price, and if we don’t represent our interests, we may live more comfortably, but we will end up losing a lot more. We pass better if we fight. I think Zrinski would understand that too.

Are you afraid to act like that all the time? Are you afraid?

Those who are afraid of political struggle should choose another occupation. I am afraid the way Christians do. I wouldn’t want to fail. There are temptations, mistakes, but we must strengthen ourselves every day not to go astray. Hungarians usually say, ‘I fear God.’ Once before God we all have to pay the bills and no one can avoid it.

Croatia has recently been hit by devastating earthquakes. But a surprising wave of aid followed, with special help coming from the Hungarian government, which is building a church and school in Zazina, for example. What motivated you to help us so quickly and abundantly?

I have noticed that there is a sense of closure in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. It seems to me that you are not yet convinced that you will be successful, that you can win cooperation, that you are strong enough, that you can decide to whom you will open the door – not only to people but also to capital, and that you will be able to shape your country and economic destiny. structure. This sometimes occurs even when other, other countries are doing you good, thinking that “they certainly want to achieve something with that.” It’s hard to live like that, I know that feeling. After the communist era, we also made a bunch of mistakes. As we noticed what was going on at all, we lost control of elementary national resources — the energy system, the banking sector, the media — it all passed into the hands of foreigners, and not on the basis of some of our own, planned logic, rather it is simply taken from us. I’ve been working for 10 years to get back what we shouldn’t have wasted. I absolutely understand your life instinct.

If there is any spirituality in regional cooperation that includes the protection of national Christian cultures, ideological attacks come immediately. It is a left-liberal attack that stems from Brussels and is linked to American liberal and economic powers. So they don’t want us to be free, they want us to be free the way they want us to be.

We should achieve, with due respect for the national interests of all of us, that we finally understand that Central Europe is a community of destinies. When a Central European extends his hand, the hypothesis must be that he wants to help. If, on the other hand, the superpower offers its hand, we must ask the question: What do they want? When a Croat helps a Hungarian or a Hungarian a Croat or a Pole a Croat, I think there is no room for those fears. I believe that we in Central Europe are a community of destiny. I am not naive, we have disagreements, but in essence it is a community of destiny. And only through cooperation can we protect our elementary interests from empires. So, I am absolutely sure – if we unite forces in all political milieus, even in the European Union, we can pursue our interests much more strongly. If we hope that the French and the Germans will help us, that they will accept decisions that are favorable to us, if we court them, and that we will do well with it, then we do not understand the situation. So, we will do well only if we can show a common Central European strength. That is why we must help each other in evil. This happened even after the earthquake. Otherwise, you would do the same.