Manifesto

In an emergency situation, I am compelled to address all people of good will and integrity. I request you to understand what the official organs of the Hungarian State are doing to the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship and its charitable institutions. Let every one of you do everything in their power to ensure that this unjust situation is remedied.

• If you can, please send this appeal wherever you can,

• Anyone who is prepared to speak out against this injustice and inhumanity, please do so courageously and openly, contact your Member of Parliament and ask him or her to speak out on our behalf.

• Anyone who is in a position to give support should be generous within their means.

If every member of the wealthiest one per cent of Hungary’s would support our work with two thousand forints a month (about the price of two kilos of bread), we would be able to function without interruption.

We employ a thousand people in our social, educational, health, family support and spiritual services, reaching around 20,000 people. We have been doing this work, which was taken over from the state, since the regime change, and some important parts of it even before.

The current government, by taking away our church status in an unconstitutional way (and not remedying it despite the decision of the Hungarian Constitutional Court), has forced us into a debt trap.

For more than ten years we have been fighting for our rights, and have kept our institutions running by the grace of God and with the help of our well-meaning supporters, even under these circumstances.

But now we have reached a breaking point.

On the instructions of the relevant government minister and his state secretaries, the NAV (National Tax and Customs Administration) has first drastically reduced the standard normative which we would be entitled to for the work we do, and then confiscated it altogether.

• Despite our intentions, we are unable to pay the salaries of our thousand employees.

• The school year has started, and every day we have to educate and feed some 3 000 children coming from extreme poverty.

• We also have hundreds of homeless people, our homeless hospital and our old people’s homes to look after.

• Thousands of families in destitution are looking to us.

If anyone reading this manifesto, anywhere in the world, feels that a community living for basic human rights and for the poor and vulnerable cannot be trampled underfoot, I urge them to do their part. Let us prevent soulless tyranny from achieving its undeserved triumph.

I thank all our compassionate friends and brothers for their support so far, and for the faithful perseverance of those of our colleagues who have been able to do so.

Please stand with us so that we can continue to help, so that we can do the essential work that means survival for the poorest one percent of our nation.

Budapest, 12 September 2023.
Gábor Iványi