Zoltán Balog hands scholarship documents to Christian students from countries where Christian faith faces persecution or discrimination
Photo: MTI/Noémi Bruzák

Addressing 72 Christian students from the Middle East who have received Hungarian state scholarships, Balog said in Budapest’s St. Stephen’s Basilica that the stipends were for people who had come from countries where Christians face suffering and danger on a daily basis.

“Today three out of four Christians in the world are persecuted, and the western world knows little about it,” he said.

The students attended the Latin Mass celebrated by Cardinal Péter Erdő, the head of the Hungarian Catholic Church.

Under many decades of Communism, Hungarian Catholics were isolated from the church and they need to form contacts with the Catholic faithful of other lands, Erdő told the congregation.

“It is important for the present generation to experience being part of a single Christian family while sharing our faith and our mission,” the cardinal said.