Pedophilia scandal in Hungary: church leader resigns – mass demonstration Scholz and Zelensky sign long-term security pact

The head of the Hungarian Protestant Reformed Church, Bishop Zoltan Balog, resigned on Friday over his involvement in a pedophilia scandal. Last week, President Katalin Novak resigned over the affair. Balog was accused of helping Novak pardon a man convicted of aiding and abetting the sexual abuse of minors.

The scandal turns Hungary upside down. Despite the resignation, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the capital Budapest on Friday evening, according to local media. They partially closed a metro line. The demonstrators blamed the government of right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for conditions in the children’s homes and the authorities’ handling of violent crimes against children.

Balog was a close and influential political companion of Orbán for decades. From May 2012 to May 2018 he was Minister of Human Resources, responsible for healthcare, social affairs, youth, education, culture and sport. Since 2021, he has led the church as pastoral chairman of the synod, together with a secular co-chair. At the same time he is bishop of one of the four church districts of Hungary. He initially retained this position.

After Novak’s resignation, under pressure from media revelations, Balog admitted that he, as her adviser and longtime mentor, had supported the controversial pardon. He subsequently faced enormous criticism, including in the country’s pro-government media.

“I made a serious political mistake, albeit on the issue of pardons. I asked for mercy’ Balog said in a video address published on the Reformed Church’s homepage. He justified his dismissal by saying the case damaged the reputation of his church. The Reformed Church with a Calvinist orientation has been a formative – and most recently especially conservative – factor in politics and culture in Hungary for centuries.

Balog is the third public figure to resign in the wake of this scandal. In addition to President Novak, the then Minister of Justice Judit Varga, who was partly responsible for the controversial pardon, also resigned from all offices: she withdrew her candidacy for the EU Parliament and gave up her mandate in the Hungarian Parliament. (saw/sda/dpa)