Hungary opened exhibition on persecuted Christians in London

Tristan Azbej, the state secretary in charge of the Hungary Helps programme, attended the opening ceremony of an exhibition on persecuted Christians at the Hungarian House in London late on Monday.

“Currently Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world,” Azbej said in his address at the event. Speaking to Hungarian public media, Azbej said: “The Western world, so proud of promoting human rights and its tolerance, does not begin to grasp the suffering, persecution, and curbing of rights of 300 million people.”

The Hungarian government “rejects that attitude, based on its values and humanitarian preferences,” he said. Since the start of the Hungary Helps programme in 2017, the scheme has reached out to over 1.5 million people in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa persecuted by terrorist or extremist groups because of their Christian faith, he added.

“This sends an important message of solidarity … a call for assistance to innocent people suffering persecution,” he said. “This message also reflects the values Hungary prefers at a time when Western Christian civilisation denies its own cultural roots, trying to undermine all that arises from Christian teachings,” he added.

Azbej said that while Christian communities in the Middle East were still in a difficult situation, the persecution of Christians was most serious in western parts of Africa, with Islamic State and other jihadist groups threatening communities, Azbej said. In Nigeria alone, some 3,000 Christians are killed each year, and Hungary Helps has decided to focus its activities on that region, he added.