Hungarian religious group becomes registered church

The Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship (Magyar Evangéliumi Testvérközösség, MET) led by pastor Gábor Iványi has been registered as a church following a court’s rejection of a prosecutor’s appeal, the church said on Friday.

The ruling does not mean, however, that MET has regained its past legal status, the church said in a statement, explaining that this would require an agreement with the Hungarian state.

The statement noted that MET lost its status following the enactment of the 2011 law on the legal status of churches and religious denominations. The organisation eventually turned to the European Court of Human Rights, which ordered the Hungarian government to pay compensation to MET. In 2013, Hungary’s Constitutional Court ruled that the MET had been stripped of its legal status in a manner that was unconstitutional and ordered the state to restore its church status.