Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's Speech during the Celebration Service at the Renovated Reformed Church in Rimaszombat (Rimavská Sobota)

January 23, 2014 6:41 PM

17 November 2013, Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia

Your Excellencies the Bishops, Respected Curator, Dear Congregation, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a rare and great honour to be able to speak in the house of God, especially if one travels across borders to speak to one's own community. And this is also why it is a especially gratifying for me, as Prime Minister of Hungary, to be able to personally pass on the best regards of the Hungarians who live in our homeland. It is also a special pleasure to have the opportunity of welcoming Bishop Géza Erdélyi here today, and this in turn provides me with the opportunity to express my great appreciation for the encouragement, support and wise advice that he has provided for many decades both to Hungary and to my family and I personally. We are very grateful.

Dear Congregation,

It is a good sign, a good aspect of planets, if a community begins the renovation of its slowly degrading buildings in the year of the millennium. We, people of the bible, call it finding the appropriate time; kairos. It is our belief that time doesn't simply exist, it doesn't just pass like the grains of sand in an hourglass, but instead always provides us with some kind of objective. The reformed Christians of Rimaszombat recognised the appropriate time and began reconstruction. For thirteen years they added forint to crown, crown to forint, and later euros to those. No matter how strong the headwind, you never gave up hope. Thank you for the lesson in perseverance and loyalty that you have given the Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today represents the final full stop at the end of the thirteen year story, because the reconstruction of the Reformed Church in Rimaszombat began during the first civil government in Hungary. Just as the construction of the modern Hungarian nation, although it was forced to suffer a pause of eight years, was realised through one and a half decades of mutual thinking and joint action. The decade of national policy leading up to 2010 brought with it much resignation and retreat, but in contrast to many, you did not complain and you did not remain inactive, but instead you constructed. And in 2010, the new era of Hungarian national construction arrived: the unification of the nation, irrespective of borders. It was worth enduring and it was worth continuing to believe and hope, because the religious community can do the most for the Hungarian nation by keeping hope alive and by teaching us to pray and work with hope.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We know that we can give Europe, and I think also Slovakia, the most if we stay Hungarian, if we remain good Hungarians here also. The history of the Reformation cannot be separated from the history of Europe. The history of the Reformation, which began almost five hundred years ago when a monk nailed his ninety-five theses on the renewal of the Church onto the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg. Since then, the Protestants have always constructed from above, according to the will of God, from the highest level, by building from the lowest level, from the congregation. This is how it came to be that today, every reformed congregation is an independent, strong, autonomic community that is open to all, and which chooses its own leaders. And the individual congregations are not primarily linked by dependence on a central authority, but more so by their common values as expressed in their faith. And so Protestantism will be strong if its individual congregations are strong. It is thanks to this that during the period of [Turkish] occupation, the Hungarian people who became concentrated in the country's rural cities were able to survive in the buffer zone between two world empires. It is thanks to this that not even communism succeeded in breaking the strength of the Calvinists. The communists had a good deal of trouble with the Protestants, because the communists were used to the fact that if they beat up the Church's supreme earthly shepherd, then the flock would scatter. In contrast, with the Protestants they were forced to acknowledge that each and every reformed congregation was lead by a strong pastor, and even the sheep were extremely snappish. Thank you again for your perseverance.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

According to the Second Helvetic Confession, the correct use of the Church's assets was and remains as follows. First of all, teaching in schools and in the congregation must be assured, after which the services and various ceremonies must be performed, and the church, the teachers, students and the servants of the Church must be taken care of, as well as other important duties such as helping the poor. For long centuries, reformed congregations understood that they owed their survival to their having successfully established and preserved their own community spaces. During the age of the Turkish occupation, in place of the previous, military system of defensive fortresses to which people could flee in times of trouble, there came about a new system of cultural fortresses with two determinative institutions: the church and the school. These remain the most important theatres in the battle for the survival of the Hungarian peoples within the Carpathian Basin today. It is my belief that the Hungarian community in Slovakia can also only remain Hungarian if it is capable of living on the land of it birth while preserving its language, faith and identity. It is no accident that the first Hungarian Legion of Honour was awarded not to a politician, not to a general, but to a teacher, Mrs. Tamás Aladár née Ilona Szúcs, who taught generation after generation of students Hungarian for many, many decades. Thank you!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We Protestants profess, together with Paul the Apostle, that God loves those who are happy to give. And those who give can rest assured that every single forint or euro that goes into the collection box will be converted into knowledge in the Church's schools, and into loving care in its social institutions. All reformed Christians know that whatever support or help they receive, it is always a gift and never a payment. It is not given because it is owed, because it has been worked for or in sympathy, but because its sole purpose is to serve. And this is exactly what you did in 2001 when the Millennium Religious Fund was launched and the people of Rimaszombat received funding; a study was performed and the Prime Minster's Office determined that if we support a church community, then for every 1 forint we provide they will provide at least 3 forints themselves. If my calculations are correct, the people of Rimaszombat added the equivalent of 5 forints to every forint they received. This is the original meaning of the phrase personal contribution, because the community showed its strength and contributed personally. Like when the good steward occupies the office he is awarded by God. The renewal of our churches and our schools, Ladies and Gentlemen, also requires a strong motherland that is capable of looking beyond its own borders. Between 2011 and 2013, the Government of Hungary supported the renovation of a total of 119 churches and church buildings located outside Hungary's borders. This also includes the 23 churches and church buildings in Upper Hungary whose renovation the homeland has supported with a total of 60 million forints.

Dear Congregation,

I haven't come to report on the political battles going on at home, but there is one thing that you should know. What is at stake in the struggles at home, and the stakes are great, is clearly indicated by the following episode, which clearly shows that the political battles that are fought on the surface have a deeper meaning and potential consequences for the fate of the Hungarian peoples. One of the publicly advertised slogans of today's Government, which is civil, national and Christian, is: soli Deo gloria. In contrast, the reply of the other political camp was simply, in plain Hungarian: glory to man alone. I don't think I need say more about the situation at home.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The fate of we Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin is to always search for the kairos, the suitable moment, so that we can fill the space provided for us in the most useful way possible. There is an anecdote about a group of brethren at the time of the religious wars, who only received permission to build a church that would just fit the congregation. The ingenious Calvinist Hungarians gathered side-by-side in one group on the appointed plot of land to show the space than needed to be surrounded by the walls. However, despite the fact that there was a heatwave, each had donned their thick, winter clothes, with the men all dressed in their wide, sheepskin capes and fur coats, so as to occupy space on the building site for the growth to come – because they trusted in the fact that the people of the Church would thrive.

Dear People of Rimaszombat,

If we commit ourselves and succeed in preserving our churches and our schools, then there will be every chance for the Hungarian community to once again begin to grow within the Carpathian Basin, and then in a hundred years our grandchildren and their grandchildren will also sing the psalms here in the church of Rimaszombat in Hungarian. In precisely the manner that is worthy of the people of Gáspár Károli and Albert Szenczi Molnár. God bless the Hungarians of Upper Hungary and Rimaszombat!

Soli Deo gloria!