Hungary moves to assist persecuted Christians in the Middle East

The government of Hungary has set up a new department and prepared an initial budget of three million euros to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East. It will be working under the Hungarian Ministry for Human Capacities, which deals with matters regarding education and the Church.

Tamás Török, former deputy ambassador to Italy, will be serving as head of the department. The purpose of the department is to gather information and analyze situations that involve Christian persecution. The government already released an initial one million euros as part of its budget, a portion of which will be used to send official delegates to areas identified as trouble spots.

Eduard von Habsburg, the ambassador to the Holy See, stated that Hungary has been covertly helping Christians in the Middle East for years. The new department is the result of those operations. Habsburg revealed that the government aided Christians and other persecuted minorities in obtaining visas.

He also mentioned that the government helped build a Christian school in Erbil, Iraq. He added that this "follows the philosophy that the best way [for the government] to give them a chance is to help them to stay at home, in their countries and to find help there... to help them have the chance of receiving help on the spot."

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently met with Pope Francis and Christian patriarchs from the Middle East. Orbán decided to set up the new department after the meeting with the pope.

Habsburg said that the creation of the new program was publicized to set an example to other nations in Europe.

"Somehow the idea of defending Christians has acquired a bad taste in Europe, as if it means excluding other people," Habsburg told Crux.

Hungary is one of the few European countries that has a strict policy against granting asylum to refugees. Habsburg stated that dealing with the problems in the Middle East might alleviate the pressure on Hungary to accept more refugees.

"This may not be a solution in itself, but the best strategy is to deal with the situation where people are coming from, which will mean less need for fences in Europe," Habsburg said.