Hungarian church leaders call for peace in Easter message
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Jesus “sacrificing his own life restores peace between the world and its Creator and makes peace an obligation for man”, Cardinal Péter Erdő, the head of the Hungarian Catholic Church, told MTI on Saturday, celebrating Easter.
The Cardinal said Jesus had greeted his disciples with shalom, the ancient Hebrew greeting, and said “again and again we are obliged to meet the challenge in Christ’s salutation”. “We must overcome ourselves, reining in our own passions and wishes,” he added.
Erdő highlighted the work of the Catholic Charity helping Ukrainian refugees in Hungary and called special attention to children among them. He said it was important that their schooling should not be interrupted “or else their chances in life could irreversibly diminish”.
Some 200 teachers in Catholic schools have volunteered to teach Ukrainian children, and several schools in and outside Budapest have now started the classes for children speaking Ukrainian or Russian only,
the cardinal said.
Erdő noted Pope Francis’s recent calls for peace and said “we believe in the strength of prayer… we allow the people we pray for into our hearts.”
The Catholic Church is in an “ecumenical relationship” with both the Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches; it “has been and will be ready to promote dialogue,” the cardinal said.
Bishop Zoltán Balog, head of the synod of the Hungarian Reformed Church, told MTI that “the suffering we endure or witness will not alienate us from God but bring us closer to Him”.
“Celebrating Easter in the shadow of war provides an opportunity to think about suffering in the light of resurrection,”
he said.
Balog said he was “grateful and proud” to see that “Hungarians are helping on both sides of the Hungary-Ukraine border”, adding that the Reformed Charity had mobilised 5,000 volunteers, with church members opening up their homes and accommodating over 6,500 refugees.