House speaker addresses conference of Reformed Church intellectuals

Christian democracy maintains a balance between the rights and responsibilities of individuals and communities, House Speaker László Kövér said at a roundtable discussion at a conference of Reformed Church intellectuals in Balatonszárszó, western Hungary, late on Thursday.

At the discussion with Fidesz MEP László Trócsányi and Istvan Bogárdi Szabó, the head of the Hungarian Reformed Church’s synod, Kövér said that balance was the key to the “worldwide success” of European civilisation.

“The mortal danger comes from disturbing it,” he added.

Liberal democracy has “made individual freedoms totalitarian,” leading to chaos, Kövér warned.

Kövér called the separation of state and church a “communist invention”, saying that historic churches had been best at cooperating between the two world wars when they signalled a “clear reference point” for everyone, regardless of party affiliation.

József Szájer, MEP of the ruling Fidesz-Christian Democrat alliance, told the conference that “a European identity could only be built on national identities” and insisted that “those building on other than an national identity will build on sand”.

He went on to say that “some forces” seek to define the European identity against national identities.

“The nation, for us, is not a category hindering development and to be discarded but one of the greatest guarantees for our survival,” Szájer said. He argued that without an inner cohesion the Hungarian nation “would not have survived for over a thousand years, it would have disappeared long ago”.

Source: MTI