A church is built on the consecrated site

A new Lutheran church is being built in Piliscsaba, Pest county. The foundation stone of the building was blessed and laid by the president-bishop of the Evangelical Church of Hungary (MEE) Tamás Fabiny on Pentecost Sunday morning.

At the service before the laying of the foundation stone, Tamás Fabiny spoke about the fact that every Christian church proclaims the presence of God in the profane space.

He pointed out that the area of ​​the Bethel Evangelical Mission Home in Piliscsaba, which also houses the new church, is a "sanctified place" and fulfills an important function in the life of the Lutheran Church, as it has been the site of "faith-deepening conferences" and church community gatherings for decades.

Gergely Prőhle, the national supervisor of the Lutheran Church, said that the construction of the church will be implemented as part of a comprehensive agreement concluded in 2020 between the church and the government.

Zoltán Fürjes, the Prime Minister's Deputy State Secretary responsible for church and ethnic relations, announced that the government supports the investment with HUF 240 million. He also said that the government recently decided to launch the Hungarian church renovation program, within the framework of which around 1,800 churches in Hungary and the Carpathian Basin can be renovated. As part of this, the Hungarian evangelical community will receive HUF 1.3 billion, of which the Northern Evangelical Church District will receive HUF 350 million, from which it can renovate 26 churches.

Zsolt Csenger-Zalán, the Fideszes parliamentary representative of the region, emphasized that the government's decisive political direction is to preserve Christian roots.

He called it a good sign that while churches in Western Europe are being emptied and either demolished or turned into profane sites, in Hungary and the Carpathian Basin, churches need to be built for the growing congregations.

(Cover image: MTI)