Zoltán Balog to stay on as leader of Hungarian Reformed Church

Zoltán Balog posted a video on the website of the Reformed Church late Tuesday afternoon, in which he spoke about the Council meeting which had ended shortly before. He said that he was the one who convened the meeting, which was attended by four-fifths of the officers, who had gathered to decide whether he should remain the pastoral president of the General Synod, i.e. the leader of the Hungarian Reformed Church.

The meeting, where he gave an account of exactly what role he played in the clemency case of the former deputy director of the Bicske children's home concluded with a secret vote in which 86 percent of those present affirmed their confidence in him. The council asked him to reconsider his public role and whether it was compatible with his role as synod president. Balog announced that he would comply with their request, and would not resign from his position in the church.

He said that they reject all attempts to associate the church with the clemency case, as they do not deal with such matters.

He also said that it was others who had appealed to the Head of State on behalf of the deputy director, Endre K., "so the petition was not submitted by me, I did not submit it."

However, based on previous opinions and other information, he agreed with K.'s request for clemency as an adviser to the president, he said. "I was wrong, I made a mistake," he admitted.

He has already apologised or will do so to those he had to or should, and he rejects paedophilia. Balog said that his apology was not needed because he took the side of a person seeking pardon, "but because this case has caused damage to the Reformed Church". For this he apologised to all his fellow believers. But what the consequences of this should be in the church, he said, was "not for the media, nor for the opposition, nor for the government to decide", but for elected church officials.

When Zoltán Balog arrived at the office in the morning, neither he nor any of the other arriving leaders said anything to the press. In fact, a minivan was used to shield Balog from reporters so that they could not get close to him.

Balog's responsibility in the case first arose, when, independently from each other, several government sources and sources close to the presidential office have told Direkt36 and Telex in recent days that as an old mentor of Novák, the head of the General Synod of the Hungarian Reformed Church, Zoltán Balog played an important role in the clemency case.

According to these sources, it was Balog who encouraged the President to pardon Endre K.

When the scandal first broke and both Novák's associates and Orbán's team demanded an explanation from Balog, he defended himself by saying that it was not his personal decision, but that several people in the leadership of the Hungarian Reformed Church were keen to see Endre K. pardoned, as his family had strong connections to the Reformed Church.

Last week, at the height of the clemency scandal, Balog went to a monastery in Austria to pray. It was from there, on Monday, that he later promised to make a statement on the clemency case the following day. Shortly afterwards, Telex obtained the letter Balog sent to his fellow pastors and elders on Monday.

In it he claimed that he did not submit the request for clemency for Endre K, and that “the utter rejection of the crime of paedophilia has never been and will never be a matter of debate” for him.

Telex had earlier reported that some government politicians had already signaled to the Hungarian Reformed Church on Monday that they would like Zoltán Balog to “draw the appropriate conclusions” and that Viktor Orbán himself holds Balog responsible for the case.

In a short statement sent to MTI on Monday evening, the Prime Minister's press chief Bertalan Havasi called "the allegations concerning Viktor Orbán and Zoltán Balog, published in the leftist press, nonsense and a hoax". He added that the Prime Minister does not interfere in the affairs of churches.

From church to politics to church leadership

Viktor Orbán's former minister (he served as Minister of Human Resources between 2012 and 2018) was ordained as a Calvinist pastor in 1983 and served in various positions for several decades. He became bishop of the Danubian Church District in 2021, and a few weeks later he was also appointed the pastoral president of the General Synod i.e. essentially the leader of the Reformed Church in Hungary. At the time, many saw Balog as Fidesz's man in the Reformed Church, and considered his role to be the smoothing out of cooperation between the government and the church, which is particularly important to the government – especially since the Prime Minister himself is Reformed.

Balog has been one of the members of President Novák's advisory board, but according to several sources familiar with the Novák-Balog relationship, the Reformed bishop's influence on the decisions of Katalin Novák far exceeded his formal position. A former colleague of Novák's, who was on good personal terms with her, said, "Kata will do anything for him."

It was Balog who took Katalin Novák under his wing and steered her political career. Starting in 2012, they worked together closely for many years – first as state secretary and chief of cabinet, and then as minister and state secretary. Although Balog left the government in 2018, he remained close with Novák and became a key member of her advisory board after she was elected president in 2022.