Biggest opposition party calls on Calvinist Bishop Balog to resign

The opposition Democratic Coalition has called on Reformed Bishop Zoltán Balog to resign from his positions in the church.

Olga Kálmán, the spokeswoman for the party’s parliamentary group, told a press conference that Balog is responsible for 23 kindergartens and 23 schools as the head of a church district. She called for an independent investigation of “whether there have been instances of child abuse in the church-run kindergartens and schools under Balog’s purview”.

Balog has resigned as president of the Synod of the Reformed Church in Hungary in February, after his role was questioned in a decision of former President Katalin Novák to extend a presidential pardon to a former deputy director of a children’s school, who had been sentenced to prison for trying to cover up sexual abuse committed by the home’s director. Novak and Judit Varga, the justice minister at the time, resigned from all their political positions in the wake of the issue.

Read also:

• Reformed Bishop resigns after admitting he supported scandalous presidential pardon – Read more HERE
• Hungarian bishop apologises over opinion given in support of presidential pardon