“The leaders of Middle Eastern Christians Churches taking part in a three-day international conference on the persecution of Christians have confirmed that the Hungarian Government’s policy of assisting Christians who have been driven from their homes to return home is correct”, the Deputy State Secretary for Aiding Persecuted Christians said.

Following the close of the conference in Budapest on Friday, Tristan Azbej told Hungarian news agency MTI that the primary goal of the conference was to acquire first-hand information from the leaders of persecuted Christian communities about the status of their communities, the dangers they are facing and possibilities to provide assistance.

“It transpired from the reports that the “primary need” of Christian communities is to be able to return to their homes with international support and to continue to be able to live where their communities have lived for two thousand years”, he stressed.

“Around half of the conference’s 300 participants came from outside Hungary, from 32 countries, and Church leaders represented ten different Christian denominations”, he added.

The often declared standpoint of Hungarian government officials, including in Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech, according to which instead of bringing the trouble to Europe and allowing refugees and migrants into Europe, we should be taking assistance to where it is needed, “resonated well” with the participants’ reports.

Mr. Azbej also said that the presence of government officials from other countries was missed, and their failure to attend the conference speaks for itself.

“The Hungarian Government established the Deputy State Secretariat for Aiding Persecuted Christians one year ago to draw the attention of as many countries and international organisations as possible to the plight of Middle Eastern Christians, and to convince them to follow Hungary’s example”, he recalled. “Unfortunately persecuted Christian communities’ cries for help and the supportive voice of the Hungarian Government, which is standing up in support of them, has so far fallen on deaf ears in the Western world”, he said.

Mr. Azbej said the participants of the conference are attempting to increase the number of countries and organisations that are standing up for persecuted Christians, and will be trying to encourage cooperation on the part of governments and goodwill organisations, of which there are a great many.

“Together, we will topple the wall of silence that surrounds the persecution of Christians”, he said, adding that according to the joint standpoint of the Hungarian Government and foreign goodwill and Church organisations, the suppression of news reports in the West concerning the persecution of Christians is not spontaneous, but intentional.

The problem is a taboo because “it does not fit into the Western liberal narrative according to which Christianity is an aggressive and discriminatory religion, and which clearly gives preference to supporting minority groups that are suffering a much smaller violation of their rights that Christians, whose very existence is under threat”, the Deputy State Secretary explained.

Mr. Azbej also told reporters that the participants of the conference had drawn up a joint statement on the above, which would soon be made public.

(Ministry of Human Capacities/MTI)