#this sonuvab*** managed to steal an entire country in the heart of Europe

[yarnersan]

The man Viktor Orbán wants to destroy - and whom he might fear the most

This is Pastor Gábor Iványi, the head of the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship, a small, free-thinking Methodist congregation.

This is Viktor Orbán, the increasingly far-right prime minister of Hungary, who's basically managed to steal an entire country in the heart of the European Union - also the great friend and student of many authoritarian or far-right leaders: Erdogan, Xi, Trump and, of course, Putin.

One of the most gripping stories in the fall of democratic Hungary under Orbán in the last 13 years is the duel between these two men. Iványi is the elderly, jovial pastor of a small methodist church. Always on the side of the downtrodden - the Roma, the homeless, the poor, the refugee. He is the living conscience of the country. His congregation may be relatively small, but it operates a network of schools, kindergartens, homeless shelters, senior homes etc around the country, caring for some 20 000 people. (Their activities are completely non-denominational and neutral - they don't require anyone in their schools etc. to pray with them and the clientele has absolutely no money to give to the church.)

Strangely enough, the two men hey started out together - in the late 80's Iványi was the "pastor of the opposition," and as such, the one to christen the first two children of the young, rebellious liberal opposition leader, Viktor Orbán.

In the late 90s Orban went for the more prosperous field of increasingly right-wing populism, generating a fanatical following and polarizing the country, Iványi stayed where he was needed - with the homeless, the Roma, the increasing number of impoverished people - often raising his voice in their protection (eg from the marching neo-nazi paramilitary groups).

Come 2010: Orban wins the elections with 2/3 majority, giving him free reign over the country. He declares that he will cement his government "for the next 20 years", and changes the constitution (which he never said he was planning to). The increasingly undemocratic measures (one of Orbán's first, symbolic acts is to remove the word "republic" from the country's official name) are met with several opposition demonstrations in the first years - and Iványi is a frequent speaker.

One of the many large-scale changes is a new church law - purportedly to get rid of the "many business churches" operating in the country - in reality to cement in a few servilient churches to push propaganda in exchange of the (extremely) generous support of the state.

The law declares that only a small number of churches - named in the law - may remain recognised churches, everything else must become a "religious association" - and not receive the extra subsidies churches were previously entitled to when they operate educational or social welfare institutions - basically killing their budgets. They can also no longer receive the yearly 1% tax donation Hungarians may freely bestow on their church of choice. Iványi is semi-formally told that he should not even dream of getting the status - it is not a right, but a favour granted by the government, and Orbán has vowed to destroy him.

Iványi's church fights the new bill, winning all cases in court, before the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The government laughs in their face - they never get back their church status and the lost subsidies (after the decision of the Constitutional Court Orbán cynically changes the constitution to "correct" the situation). The goal is to simply and slowly let them bleed out - it would cause too much of an uproar to shut the church and its institutions down. Public support is high, but after a while everyone becomes numb - there's only so much the average citizen can keep being enraged about.

The plan almost backfired - in 2023 the church is still standing, Iványi and his staff of more than 1000 people are still there caring for the increasing number of people kicked to the curb by Orbán's kleptocratic regime, so the government has stepped up its game - the Tax Authority has started to pull large amounts of money (hundreds of thousand dollars) from the church's bank account "for their unpaid bills", even though the state rightfully and legally owes the church several millions. They got to the point where some months they cannot pay the staff's salary.

So far the Evangelical Fellowship has managed to stay operational and show that there is another way to live in this divided country, another way to turn towards our fellow men - without fear and hate, to show that a church must not spew nationalist propaganda in exchange of the state's favour, to show that you must not bend your backbone to live in this country. To be the living conscience of the country.

It may not last, though. The attacks have intensified in the last months, Iványi himself is getting older and his health and constitution has suffered from the decade of persecution. This is how he and Orbán look like after 13 years of this regime.

What Iványi and his church needs is help, support (monetary and other) and visibility on the international stage. You can find them here

TL;DR: There's a community in Hungary that is deeply committed to freedom, liberalism, equality and humany dignity, that the autoritarian, alt-right despot (Putin's and Xi's lackey) Orbán wants to destroy - and they are almost at the end of their tether. Help them by donating or just spreading the word.

Some sources: 1 2 3 4