{"id":3013,"date":"2017-10-12T10:09:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T14:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weirs.com\/wordpress\/?p=3013"},"modified":"2017-10-11T13:16:25","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T17:16:25","slug":"hungary-helps-embattled-mid-east-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/hungary-helps-embattled-mid-east-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary Helps Embattled Mid-East Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-204 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/weirs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Byline_JMetzler.jpg?zoom=0.8999999761581421&amp;resize=168%2C203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/weirs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Byline_JMetzler.jpg?zoom=0.8999999761581421&amp;resize=168%2C203\" alt=\"John Metzler\" width=\"135\" height=\"150\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>by John J. Metzler<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Weirs Times Contributing Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>UNITED NATIONS &#8211; One of the silent tragedies among the conflicts raging in the Middle East, concerns the fate of the ancient and now persecuted Christian communities. Concerns for the forgotten and once vibrant Christian minorities especially in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are often politely air brushed out of political discussions.<br \/>\nHungary\u2019s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has taken special care to underline the plight of persecuted minorities in the Middle East who are facing attacks by Islamic terrorist groups.<br \/>\nIn an exclusive interview with this writer, Minister Szijjarto conceded, \u201cUnfortunately the West-ern World suffers hypocrisy and political correctness. It is strange but many of us are not brave enough to speak about the necessity of protecting Christians.\u201d<br \/>\nIndeed political gatherings \u201cusually speak about \u2018religious groups\u2019 which I don\u2019t like the term for example. I like to be straightforward and honest. And if I mean we have to protect the Christians, I will say we have to protect the Christians.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/peter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3014 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirs.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/peter-1024x586.jpg?resize=640%2C366\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"366\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nHe added enthusiastically, \u201cWhenever I speak about the necessity to protect Christians in the foreign affairs councils of the European Union, I\u2019m warned, \u2018Peter be more balanced and say protection of religious groups\u2019 which I totally deny because if we Christians don\u2019t speak about the necessity to protect Christians, Who will speak about this? No one!\u201d<br \/>\nAlthough Christian believers form the largest religious community worldwide, \u201cthat should not keep us from speaking about brothers and sisters living in those areas where they are not the ma-jority.\u201d<br \/>\nSignificantly, the Budapest government has established a State Secretariat which only deals with the cases of the persecuted Christian communities around the world.<!--more--><br \/>\nWhen asked which other countries have such a formal commitment to persecuted Christians, Minister Szijjarto stated proudly, \u201cI think we are unique in that. This State Secretary has the duty to monitor the status of the Christian communities globally. If they need help we try to help.\u201d<br \/>\nHungary\u2019s own bitter experience under communism served as a reminder of the importance of religious freedom. Today Hungary is a member of NATO and the European Union.<br \/>\nAn astute and passionate supporter of this cause, Minister Szijjarto added, \u201cFor example we finance construction of schools for Christians in the Middle East. We finance humanitarian actions and provide help for them in their communities. Why? Because their leaders told us we should not encourage them to leave their communities because then they will leave the Middle East. So we help them to remain strong where they stay.\u201d<br \/>\nThe Minister stressed, \u201cHelping them to be strong in the places that they live is the number one issue in this regard. You know we should not forget we are the most persecuted religion all around the world. And let us not forget that four our of every five people killed because of his or her religious affiliation is a Christian.\u201d<br \/>\nHe added, \u201cWe should not be shy in speaking about that because if you look at our Moslem brothers they speak about the protection of their groups very openly. Which we should do as well.\u201d<br \/>\nAncient Christian communities in Syria and Iraq are being attacked and forced out by Islamic State and Al Qaida terrorists.<br \/>\nWhen asked whether some of the Christians who joined the refugee flow will return, the Minister conceded \u201cNo, that is why we are financing the operation of schools, hospitals and communities. We hope they will return but the minimal goal should be that those stay in their countries. We are contributing to the reconstruction of 100 Christian churches in Lebanon. They are churches which were not reconstructed or old and we finance them to be reconstructed as to be community centers too.\u201d<br \/>\nHe stressed, \u201cIn Iraq we are building a school in Erbil and contributing to a hospital too. We support the Syrian Orthodox and Syrian Catholic Church as well.\u201d<br \/>\nSpecifically how much funding is there? \u201cTen million Euros, ($13 million). We are a small country so please put this into consideration. For communities, hospitals and schools. There are charities too, but much this funding is directly from the Hungarian government. You help these people not because you want to be a Star but because it comes from your heart.\u201d<br \/>\nEqually Hungary has granted citizenship for two Syrian Orthodox Bishops and extends scholarships to Christian youth in the region.<br \/>\nBut viewing the wider lens of the massive Syrian migrant exodus to Europe in 2015 Minister Szijjarto takes a contrarian approach to standard European Union migration Policy; \u201cOur position is very different than the approach of the European mainstream. We should not bring a problem where there is no problem and we should bring help where there is a problem.\u201d<br \/>\nHe stresses, \u201cOur policy is absolutely contradicting Brussels because Brussels (EU) encourages to take the life risks and come to Europe. Our position is that we have to bring the help to these people where they are right now. And restore their rights where rights were violated. That is why we are in favor of financing Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and the Kurdish region of Iraq, the areas around the war torn region. Because if you assist them they will be able to take care of the refugees there. \u201c<br \/>\nIn separate comments, Vatican Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for Relations with States for the Holy See, praised Hungary\u2019s efforts in helping persecuted Christians.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #999999;\"><em><strong>John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by John J. Metzler Weirs Times Contributing Writer UNITED NATIONS &#8211; One of the silent tragedies among the conflicts raging in the Middle East, concerns the fate of the ancient and now persecuted Christian communities. Concerns for the forgotten and once vibrant Christian minorities especially in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are often politely air brushed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"OP\/ED from John Metzler this week: Hungary Helps Embattled Mid-East Christians","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oped-by-metzler"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5HzbG-MB","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3013"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3016,"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013\/revisions\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirs.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}