Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén, at an event held on the sidelines of the International Eucharistic Congress in Budapest, praised the work of the Hungarian Charity Service of the Order of Malta, highlighting its support of persecuted Christians.
Persecuted Christians in the East must be aided in their homeland to ensure that Christianity does not disappear from the Holy Land, the deputy PM in charge of church policy told the event held for Middle Eastern church leaders attending the 52nd Eucharistic Congress. Christians who have had to flee their homelands need to be helped in a way that allows them to live a full life here and integrate into Hungarian society, Semjén said. The deputy prime minister highlighted the support of persecuted Hungarians as the charity organisation’s second main activity, noting the help it had provided Transylvanian Hungarians during the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and its help in the evacuation of Hungarians from Venezuela. Semjén praised the charity for having taken in many of the Hungarians who had fled to Venezuela after the failed anti-Soviet uprising of 1956. He also lauded the charity service’s efforts to aid the homeless and those struggling with drug or alcohol addictions. Semjén said the Hungarian government supported religious charities in the same way it did state-run aid organisations, adding that half of all social services in Hungary were now church-run.
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