Hungarian churches warn of social breakdown amid financial crisis

Church leaders in Hungary have warned that the financial crisis and increasing unemployment could lead to violence and social breakdown in the country.

Rev Balazs Odor, ecumenical officer of the Reformed Church in Hungary, said, "We were already in bad shape before this global crisis, and we are now affected more deeply than other countries in our region," reports Ecumenical News International.

Hungary is one of the worst hit countries in Eastern Europe by the current financial crisis.

Odor said, "As churches, we have a mission to be on the side of the weak and excluded, and to raise our voices prophetically."

He added that tensions had been increased following the 2006 election, when the distrusted socialist government just managed to hold onto power. The election was followed by street protests.

Tens of thousands of Hungarians are said to have lost their jobs as a result of the recession. Industrial output in the country has also fallen by one fifth whilst the forint, the Hungarian currency, has devalued by 39 per cent against the euro.

At the beginning of March, the EU rejected an appeal from the Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany for a US$241 billion rescue plan for Eastern Europe in a bid to prevent the rise of what he called a “new Iron Curtain” between rich and poor European countries.

According to Odor, the current government has added to the problems of the country and has not done enough to solve the problems.

He said, "Repeated surveys have shown they [the government] don't have the trust of the people, especially when we are in bad shape and tensions are growing towards the Roma and other minorities," said Odor.

At the end of February, a Roma man and his five-year-old son were burned to death when their house was set on fire by unknown attackers. There was speculation that the attack was a response to the murder of a handball player by a group of Roma.

The Roman Catholic Bishops Conference in Hungary also spoke out earlier this month about poor security conditions in the country. They said that elderly people were becoming increasingly vulnerable to attacks and robberies.

The bishops called on the government to deal with “real issues rather than seeking media solutions.

The presiding bishop of the Reformed Church, Gusztav Bolcskei, also said that Hungarians should show “conscience and responsibility”, whilst the government needed to put “the human person and society” at the centre of politics.