Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted a one-minute video on his Facebook page about how Hungary helps Christians, the most persecuted religious group in the world.
The video features footage of Christians being executed by groups like ISIS, including 21 Coptic Christians in 2015, as well as Christian churches being destroyed.
Part of the soundtrack is narrated, part of it has recordings of previous speeches by Orbán. The bottom line is that Hungary is doing everything in its power to help persecuted Christina communities survive and re-establish normal lives in their homes.
The video says the following:
“The world’s most persecuted religion: Christianity. There are 245 million Christians worldwide persecuted because of their faith. In 2018, 11 Christians were killed each day for confessing their faith. While the world listens to their cries of suffering with indifference, Hungary helps. We help our Christian brethren with all our strength. We believe that instead of bringing problems here, help must be taken where it is needed. We bring hope. We help locally and directly. We stand by persecuted Christians.”
According to a British government report, persecution of Christians had reached near “genocide” levels around the world. The report also determined that Christians are the most persecuted of any religious group.
The British report had a special focus on the Middle East, stating that Christians are being “wiped out” from the region. Christians once had vibrant communities across the Middle East but persecution from Muslims led them to flee or perish over the centuries.
In recent times, groups like ISIS have struck terror in the hearts of Christians, often killing them or enslaving them. However, many actual governments in the Middle East have played even a bigger role in persecuting Christians over the decades by restricting the practice of Christianity or even participating in active persecution of Christian worshippers.
Now, papers like the New York Times are asking if Christianity will even exist in the Middle East in the future.
Orbán has made protecting Christianity one of the key pillars of his government’s foreign policy by sending aid to Christian groups and raising awareness about their plight.
However, the persecution of Christians in the Middle East also played a major role in his decision to shut Hungary’s borders to Muslims refugees during the 2015 migrant crisis.
Christian bishops living in the Middle East informed the Hungarian prime minister that Europe would regret the decision to open its borders. Orbán told a journalist, “What did [the bishops] say? ‘Don’t let them in. Stop them.'”
The video featured on Facebook concludes with a quote from the New Testament:
“Let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:18)
Title image: Persecution of Christians (capture from Facebook video)
