Zsolt Jakabffy answered God’s calling twice: first, when he became a pastor, and then when he moved to California from Transylvania, with the mission of helping the local Hungarian community preserve both their Christian faith and their Hungarian identity. An interview with the reverend who is also the principal of the Hungarian Sunday school,
‘I am proud to say that Bulgaria is a multicultural, multi-ethnic and extremely tolerant society. Being the oldest state in Europe and having the oldest inhabited city in Europe, Plovdiv, only shows for how long this society has been preserved. At the same time, we are extremely cautious and sensitive concerning the subjects of tradition, values, religion, family, and homeland. We have kept our borders safe, just like our friends in Hungary.’
The Court of Justice of the European Union began its hearing on Hungary’s child protection law this week. Hungary faces opposition from 16 EU member states and the European Commission, which have labelled the law as ‘anti-LGBTQ’. A ruling against Budapest could carry significant and unforeseen implications for the future of the European Union.
An in-depth interview with German teacher Gergely Tóth, who went to the University of Berkeley, California 26 years ago for a doctoral program, then soon became immersed in local Hungarian community life. Since then, his voluntary work has extended from making oral history interviews to photographing objects and markers on four continents and collecting archival material of the Hungarian diaspora.
Recently Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was awarded the Supreme Order of the Turkic World. As he highlighted in his speech, the relationship between Hungary and the Turkic nations is not a thing of the past ‘but a living relationship’. Budapest’s trade with Turkic countries having exceeded 5 billion USD testifies to that.
European countries purchase significant amounts of American weapon systems and military equipment, making US companies the main beneficiaries of the increased defence budgets within NATO. This situation creates tensions and a fragmented will within the EU in processes aimed at strengthening the independence and competitiveness of the European defence industry. It also raises the question of whether Washington’s primary goal is the collective defence of the allies or the profit maximization of American arms manufacturers.
‘Hungarian Jews were generally known for their assimilated and law-abiding nature. By and large, they saw themselves as loyal Hungarian citizens and followed the law of the land to the letter. This was part of a well-rehearsed strategy on the part of their leaders. Between the emancipation of Hungarian Jewry and its nearly complete annihilation, Hungarian Jewish leaders experienced various levels of antisemitism. For most of their history, they could and did turn to the state authorities to ease their suffering. This strategy, useful during the previous decades, turned self-destructive in 1944–45.’
‘The importance of the Orthodox rite of St Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of the 2,300-metre Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa, also known as Horeb) in the Sinai Peninsula grew only after the loss of Jerusalem in 1187 and the fall of the Latin states in the Holy Land in 1291…It is the oldest monastery in the world to have survived in this way, where, among other things, the oldest 4th-century Greek-language manuscript of the Bible, the Codex Siniaticus, has also been preserved.’
‘We’ve been approached much more often by local American organizations to present Hungarian culture to various schools or other groups as part of a larger, multicultural performance. These collaborations have been so invigorating for our whole team that we’ve come to the conclusion that this could be the path for us. This was one of our missions in the first place: to open up to others.’
‘I have never been to a summit where such a sharp and intense political discourse was generated,’ Hungarian EU Affairs Minister Jánós Bóka said in an interview with Magyar Nemzet. Bóka also revealed that the long-term goal for the future of the European Political Community is for it to become a platform for the European security system.
Hungarian Conservative is a quarterly magazine on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.
