This year’s assembly of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) held in Budapest is hoped to give an impetus to the notion of Europe’s renewal based on Christian values, Hungary’s Human Resources Minister Zoltán Balog said on Saturday evening, addressing the event.
Balog said “relations among the churches seem to have estranged” by now, 20 years after the democratic transition, just as the enthusiasm they exhibited in 1989 has “vanished”, too. He called it regrettable that the notion of renewing Europe on the basis of Christian values has also been played down.
On a note concerning Hungary, Balog, who spoke as a reformed pastor, pointed out that churches in Hungary have developed cooperation under a new goal of helping the integration of the Roma, for instance by establishing colleges for them.
He welcomed it as “outstanding” that representatives of the Catholic Church also attend as observers the Budapest assembly of CEC, to which the Protestant and Orthodox churches have also sent their official delegates.
The CEC 14th Assembly is held in Budapest between July 3 and 8.
(MTI)
