{"id":304,"date":"2014-08-27T10:07:02","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T10:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/sitenews\/2014\/08\/27\/reintroduced-law-again-jeopardising-status-of-some-churches-in-hungary\/"},"modified":"2014-08-27T10:07:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T10:07:02","slug":"reintroduced-law-again-jeopardising-status-of-some-churches-in-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/reintroduced-law-again-jeopardising-status-of-some-churches-in-hungary\/","title":{"rendered":"Reintroduced Law Again Jeopardising Status of Some Churches in Hungary"},"content":{"rendered":"

09 January 2012 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States<\/strong><\/span> [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN; ted<\/em>NEWS] The saga of securing official church status in Hungary continues, despite what religious liberty advocates called encouraging news late last year when the Constitutional Court struck down the country\u2019s controversial Law of Churches.<\/p>\n

Prior to that ruling, more than 300 minority faiths\u00a0 among them the Seventh-day Adventist Church were set to lose official legal status in Hungary on January 1, after which they would undergo a reapplication process.<\/p>\n

With the New Year, those churches are facing a similar situation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s Constitutional Court overturned the Law of Churches purely on technical grounds, and on December 30 Hungary\u2019s majority conservative party \u201ceasily\u201d reintroduced and passed essentially the same law, effective January 1, said Dwayne Leslie, the Adventist world church\u2019s legislative representative in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

Hungary\u2019s Parliament claims the law is necessary to weed out businesses or individuals posing as churches just to gain the accompanying rights and privileges. Furthermore, the majority government maintains that the law doesn\u2019t infringe on religious liberty. It doesn\u2019t \u201cforbid\u201d worship according to any faith tradition, Hungary\u2019s minister of state for government communication, Zoltan Kovacs, wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece.<\/p>\n

Kovacs said the law merely outlines how churches can gain official recognition \u201cif they show themselves to be popular enough.\u201d One condition requires a church to prove a decades-long history in the country and count more than 1,000 members.<\/p>\n

The Hungarian government is \u201cmaking efforts to explain to the international community that this is not a human rights issue,\u201d said Ganoune Diop, the Adventist world church\u2019s representative to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation in Hungary is very complex, and there are several issues at play, from economic to judicial and legislative — and in front of these issues, religion. The government sees the de-registration of churches as a response, in part, to the tremendous challenges the country is facing,\u201d Diop said.<\/p>\n

Some experts have even predicted a further recession on Hungary\u2019s horizon, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must voice our concerns over the de-registration of churches, but whatever we say about the situation in Hungary must be prudent and sensitive to the context and sovereignty of Hungary,\u201d Diop said.<\/p>\n

Many members of the international religious liberty community maintain that regardless of the country\u2019s internal struggles, the law poses undue challenges for legitimate religious organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we not only have an objective standard of what constitutes a church, but we also need a two-thirds vote of Parliament just to become an official religion, and we think that\u2019s problematic,\u201d Leslie said.<\/p>\n

Currently, 82 of the some 300 minority religions de-registered under the latest law have reapplied for official status, among them the Seventh-day Adventist Church, denomination officials in Hungary said.<\/p>\n

Religious liberty analysts said provisions of the new law indicate that those churches that have already applied for status will not experience a gap in official recognition. They\u2019ll maintain previous recognition while a decision regarding their ultimate status is pending in Parliament.<\/p>\n

Members of Parliament have indicated that they\u2019ll arrive at a decision by the end of February, analysts said. Church leaders in Hungary report that \u201ccommunication with the government\u201d suggests that the Seventh-day Adventist Church will regain official church status.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne positive improvement in the new law is that it does not prohibit denominations to use the term \u2018church,\u2019 even if they are not accepted by Parliament,\u201d said \u00d3csai Tam\u00e1s, president of the church\u2019s Hungarian Union Conference. Churches to which Parliament does not grant official recognition will receive a \u201creligious association\u201d status, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully some churches in Hungary — including the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has been operating in the country for more than a century — will have a positive answer [next month],\u201d said John Graz, director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the Adventist world church.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage all believers to pray for religious freedom in Hungary, so our church and others can continue to operate for the good of the nation as in the past,\u201d Graz said.<\/p>\n

Top Seventh-day Adventist leadership in Hungary and the church\u2019s Trans-European Division will continue to closely monitor the situation, along with the denomination\u2019s global religious liberty community. [ted<\/em>NEWS]
__________________________________<\/p>\n

Photo: John Graz, director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty for the Adventist world church, monitors the status of church registration in Hungary from the denomination\u2019s headquarters. Church leaders in Europe report that the Seventh-day Adventist Church there will likely regain its official status at the end of February. [photo: Ansel Oliver]<\/em><\/span>
\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

ted<\/em>NEWS Staff: Miroslav Pujic, director; Deana Stojkovic, editor
119 St Peter’s Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 3EY, England
E-mail: tednews@ted-adventist.org
Website: www.ted-adventist.org<\/p>\n

ted<\/em>NEWS is an information bulletin issued by the communication department of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Trans-European Division.
You are free to re-print any portion of the bulletin without need for special permission. However, we kindly request that you identify ted<\/em>NEWS whenever you publish these materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

09 January 2012 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States<\/strong><\/span> [Elizabeth Lechleitner\/ANN; ted<\/em>NEWS] The saga of securing official church status in Hungary continues, despite what religious liberty advocates called encouraging news late last year when the Constitutional Court struck down the country\u2019s controversial Law of Churches.<\/p>\n

Prior to that ruling, more than 300 minority faiths\u00a0 among them the Seventh-day Adventist Church were set to lose official legal status in Hungary on January 1, after which they would undergo a reapplication process.<\/p>\n

With the New Year, those churches are facing a similar situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1569,1586,7,1578],"tags":[185],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication-media-technology","category-hungary","category-news","category-religious-liberty-public-affairs","tag-hungary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ted.adventist.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}