Viktor Orbán has used his annual Christmas message to call on Europeans to protect their Christian culture, and vowed Hungary will not “retreat behind concrete blocks” at Christmas and watch its women and daughters “harassed in the New Year’s Eve crowd” like its multicultural neighbours.
“Christianity is culture and civilization. We live in it. It is not about how many people go to church or how many pray honestly. Culture is the reality of everyday life… Christian culture defines our everyday morals,” wrote the Fidesz leader, in an article published in Magyar Idők.
Orbán also took aim at the enemies of his ‘country first’ policies, who say he cannot claim to be Christian if he will not support allowing “millions from other continents to settle into Europe” in accordance with the commandment to “love thy neighbour as thyself”.
“They forget the second part of the commandment,” observed Orbán: “To love ourselves.”
The conservative heavyweight explained: “Loving ourselves also means taking and protecting all that we are and who we are. To love ourselves means that we love our country, our nation, our family, Hungarian culture and European civilization.”
“Fundamentals of European life are now under attack,” the Hungarian leader continued, alluding to the difficulties faced by countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and Sweden, which have all pursued policies of mass migration and state-sponsored multiculturalism.
“Regardless of whether we are going to church or not, and if so, to which we are going, we do not want to celebrate the sacrament just behind the curtains so as not to violate the sensitivity of others,” he declared.
“We don’t want our Christmas markets to be renamed, and we definitely don’t want to retreat behind concrete blocks. We don’t want our Christmas masses to be surrounded by fear and distress. We don’t want our women, our daughters to be harassed in the New Year’s Eve crowd.”
Prime Minister Orbán added a warning against the forces which seek to deliberately weaken Christianity in Europe, which he described as a kind of cultural “immune system” — unnoticed while it is strong, but leaving the entire body politic vulnerable when it is weak.
“They want us to stop being who we are. They want us to become those who we don’t want to be. They want us to mix with people from another world, and to change in order to make diversity trouble-free,” he said.
“The free nations of Europe, the national governments elected by the free citizens, have a new task: to protect our Christian culture.
“Not for others, but for ourselves; for our families, for our nation, for our countries, and for the ‘homeland of our homeland’ — for the defence of Europe.”