He spoke Sunday in Veszprém at the rededication of the St. Michael Metropolitan Cathedral, originally founded by Blessed Gisela, the wife of Hungary’s first king, St. Stephen.
PM Orbán said the ceremony symbolized a return to the foundations of Hungary’s national identity, rooted in Christianity. “Hungary’s history and the light of Christianity are not two separate threads, but the same fabric,” he said, recalling that the nation’s first king chose Christianity not only as a faith but as a historic and moral decision to build the Hungarian state under divine guidance.
The prime minister cited an old saying from Gisela’s homeland — “Leave the church in the middle of the village” — explaining that it reminds Hungarians not to surrender the moral compass held by Christianity for two millennia. “There are forces in Europe today, some malicious and others merely naive, who seek to replace the old moral order with a man-made one, pushing faith and those who uphold it out of our lives’ center,” he said.
He contrasted Hungary’s approach with that of Western Europe, saying that in the past fifteen years, “we have done the opposite.” The government, he said, has strengthened the communities whose faith and values have preserved the Hungarian nation throughout history. He quoted the Fundamental Law: “It is the duty of every state organ to protect Hungary’s Christian culture.”
PM Orbán paid tribute to the Church’s thousand-year service “through tailwinds, headwinds, calm, and storm,” noting that faith has sustained the nation in times of glory and oppression alike — from medieval invasions to the communist persecution of the 1950s, when “thirty priests of the Veszprém Diocese suffered imprisonment or internment, and even the bishop was detained.”
He warned against modern anti-Christian movements, calling them “the new Lenin Boys — half-crazed agitators shouting at priests and harassing the faithful.” Hungary, he said, “will not give them a single square centimeter” and will instead continue its program of restoration and construction. Over the past decade, nearly 4,000 churches have been renovated across the Carpathian Basin, and more than 200 new ones built, he said.
“From this path we will not stray — one hand holds the sword, the other the trowel,” PM Orbán declared.
The prime minister lamented that much of Western Europe has turned away from its Christian roots. “Europe, once a culture of church builders, has become a civilization of church destroyers,” he said, citing statistics from Germany and France showing hundreds of churches demolished or closed in recent decades. “Thanks be to God, in Central Europe different winds still blow — here we know that if Christianity is lost, so is the homeland.”
He also congratulated Czech patriots on their “overwhelming victory” in recent elections, describing it as proof that “the Czechs are keeping their wits about them.” Hungary, he said, remembers the historic bonds between the two nations and “welcomes a new ally for the coming battles in Brussels.”
Concluding his speech, PM Orbán thanked the people of Veszprém for their loyalty and diligence, offering the government’s continued partnership “in their great and noble undertakings.”
“The people of Veszprém have always brought success to Hungary — may it be so again,” he said. “May God be above us all. Hungary above all. Go Hungary!”