Warnings of ‘Christian-nationalist’ legacy in Hungary despite opposition landslide

Hungarians have been ‘bombarded for years with Christian-nationalist, xenophobic, anti-European and anti-Western propaganda’.

The victory for Péter Magyar’s Tisza party over Viktot Orbán’s Fidesz government in the Hungarian general election on Sunday followed warnings of the effects of the Christian-nationalist Fidesz party’s 16-year rule on the country’s people and Churches.

The historian Andrea Petö said Orbán had “used Christian identity to determine who is a good citizen and who a bad one”. His government used political patronage to tie Churches to its agenda and Fidesz instrumentalised Christianity as a central element of its election campaign

Péter Techet of the Institut für den Donauraum und Mitteleuropa in Vienna said that while change from Fidesz Christian-nationalist position would be relatively quick on an institutional and level, change in society would be more difficult, as the people had been “bombarded for years with Christian-nationalist, xenophobic, anti-European and anti-Western propaganda”. Here educational work might be needed, probably over decades, Techet said.

Although the role of the churches was not a major part of the election campaign of Tisza (“Freedom and Respect”), Magyar promised to continue state funding for churches but to reform it in the interests of greater transparency. He said Churches should have greater independence and the state would work with them in “equal partnership”.

The Hungarian journalist Kornélia Kiss told Domradio that she did not expect significant changes, as Magyar, a Catholic educated by the Piarists in Budapest, came from a Christian-conservative background like the Reformed Protestant Orbán.

The theologian Rita Perintfalvi told the Austrian weekly Die Furche that the Churches’ situation had become “untenable” as Orbán had made state funding for churches dependent on their support for his policies.

There had been less visible support for Orbán than in 2022, as many priests and bishops had recognised that Orbán would likely lose the election and much of the churches’ engagement for Orbán had been “primarily opportunism”.

Perintfalvi said the 2026 elections were “the very last chance for Hungary” to distance itself from Russia and Putin and to return towards the European Union.

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