Tristan Azbej emphasized that Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world, with more than 360 million people across the globe facing discrimination, threats or persecution for confessing the name of Jesus Christ. – This is one of the greatest and most silent humanitarian and human rights crises of our time, he said.
According to the state secretary, the indifference or denial with which most politicians in the West have approached the cause of persecuted Christians clearly shows where European values have gone.
Tristan Azbej underlined that the crisis in the Middle East highlights the issue of war and peace, with half a million innocent civilians mourned in Syria and more than 11 million Syrians displaced. The armed conflict has also unleashed the Islamic State on Iraq, and the flood of refugees is threatening the security of the European continent. The state secretary emphasized that today, the bloodiest persecution of Christians is taking place in Nigeria, where - according to conservative estimates - the number of Nigerian Christians murdered for their faith was around 4,000 last year.
Gyorgy Holvenyi, an MEP of the co-ruling Christian Democrats (KDNP) recalled that they already set out at the beginning of their programme the objective of combating indifference, in addition to providing effective assistance to persecuted Christians. He said he was pleased that the Hungarian government had shown sensitivity towards persecuted Christians from the very beginning and that the protection of Christians has been at the heart of the Hungary Helps program ever since. The authors of Faces and Stories – Sandor Csudai, Arpad Kurucz, David Laszlo, Balint Somkuti and Gergely Szilvay – describe the struggle of Christian communities in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan to preserve their Christianity, as well as how Hungary is helping them through the Hungary Helps program.
Cover photo: Faces and Stories, book launch (Photo: Arpad Kurucz)
