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Tens of thousands at a demonstration on Friday evening in Hungary's capital

Photo: Bernadett Szabo / REUTERS

The head of Hungary's Protestant Reformed Church, Bishop Zoltán Balog, resigned on Friday because of his involvement in a pedophilia scandal. Last week, President Katalin Novák also resigned from office because of the affair. Balog was accused of helping Novák pardon a man convicted of aiding and abetting the sexual abuse of minors.

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

The third resignation

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 health, social affairs, youth, education, culture and sport. He has headed the church since 2021 as pastoral president of the synod, together with a secular co-president. At the same time he is bishop of one of Hungary's four church districts. He initially retained this position.

After Novák's resignation under pressure from media revelations, Balog admitted that, as her advisor and long-time mentor, he had supported the controversial pardon. He then came under massive criticism - including in the country's pro-government media.

»I made a serious political mistake, albeit on a pardon issue. I asked for mercy,” said Balog in a video speech that was published on the Reformed Church’s homepage. He justified his resignation by saying that the case was damaging the reputation of his church. The Reformed Church of Calvinistic 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 Justice Minister Judit Varga, who was jointly 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.

ktz/dpa