Viktor Orban and the Serbian Patriarch: Lights in a Dark World

September 8, 2022September 8, 2022By Srdja Trifkovic

Despite historic differences, such as strife over once commonly claimed territories, a new era has dawned for relations between Hungarians and Serbs. Both nations are standing strong for their religious and cultural traditions and thereby resisting the demands for woke transformation coming from the EU. Illustrating this new unity among onetime rivals was the Serb patriarch’s decision to bestow an award on Hungary’s conservative premier, Viktor Orban.

On September 5, Patriarch Porfirije presented Orbán with the gold degree of the Order of Saint Sava, which is the highest decoration awarded by the Serbian Church. The ceremony took place at the Carmelite Monastery in Budapest, the current seat of Hungary’s prime ministers.

The news would not, perhaps, be worthy of special note were it not for the Patriarch’s speech justifying the award and Orbán’s response. Both addresses summarize the malaise of today’s Europe. Both represent a welcome example of solidarity and unity among Christian believers belonging to different traditions (Orbán is a Protestant at the helm of a mostly Roman Catholic nation). Both are therefore worth bringing in translation to our readers, as no other outlet in the Western world will do so.

Patriarch Porfirije started his address by noting that each individual and each community lives according to its own value system. With these values, he said, they organize private, social, and cultural life, form public morality, set priorities and standards, build relationships with others, and nurture their authentic identity:

Today, however, we are faced with waves of new value systems that are often aggressively imposed on a global scale with the aim of eradicating every existing natural and civilizational order, to establish a new paradigm. In this vortex, the intention is to destroy the foundations of identity and the very pillars of individuals and communities, to make everything relative, fragile, and fluid. You, on the other hand, stand for the Christian value system that springs from the Gospel, which God established. These are the values that created both the Hungarian and the Serbian people, the values that created Europe as we knew it until yesterday, as we lived in it until yesterday. In that we are the same; there is no difference between us.

The Patriarch pointed out that very few public figures use the words God, faith in God, the Church, spirituality, Christian values, the unity of all Christians, or the mission of the Church in their political vocabulary but that Orbán does so regularly:

The word “soul,” otherwise completely forgotten in contemporary discourse, is present in your public statements and in your commitment. Specifically, the phrase “the struggle for the soul of Europe” confirms your uniqueness. These words, when you say them, are not political platitudes, demagogic phrases to win votes. No! You, Mr. Orbán, live as you speak. That is why you are a statesman who deserves the trust of your people. That is why the eyes of many other Europeans are often turned towards you, Your Excellency. And my Orthodox Serbian people listen carefully to the position you take on any issue, especially the most difficult social, economic, and even political problems of our time, which shake Europe and the modern world.

The Patriarch concluded by stating that the relations between the Hungarians and the Serbs today are the best they have been for centuries and that Orbán additionally deserved the award for his contribution to the excellent relations between the two nations:

We invoke God’s blessing on your Hungarian people. We pray to God for you, Mr. Orbán, for your associates, and especially for your family. May Christ the Lord, through the prayers of Saint Sava of Serbia and Saint Stephen, King of Hungary, preserve and improve the harmony of Hungarians and Serbs for many blessed years.

Thanking His Holiness for the award, Prime Minister Orbán stressed that he was especially grateful that the Patriarch would pray for him and his family. He also said that for the rest of his life, he would be proud of the decoration for three reasons:

First, because I received that award from a Christian brother. The second reason is because I received the award from an Orthodox brother; and the third reason is that I received the award from a Serb. All three reasons are very important to me.
I could not describe the situation in Europe more accurately than you have described it in your own words. We are people of peace; we want peace, but unfortunately we are in the middle of a war, which, as you yourself said, is the struggle for the soul of Europe. We have no choice in our lives, in the lives of our children and our grandchildren, and we should accept what God has ordained for us. When there is a lot of water, then big dams should be built. I am personally convinced that we cannot win this battle without the unity of Christians. Moreover, we cannot win that battle without our Orthodox brothers. We will need you very much, and we count on your spiritual support. We ask you and your associates to give us all this support so that we can gain enough strength to fight the temptations.

Orbán ended by saying that he would pray to God to give him the strength to be worthy of the Order he had just received, which he characterized as both a challenge and an obligation.

We may add here that it is not just Serbians and Hungarians and certain other Europeans who look to Orbán for inspiration and bold guidance. To the chagrin of the left, he is fast becoming an inspiration and an example to all true conservatives, including those in North America and the antipodes.

While still in Hungary, Patriarch Porfirije posted a video statement supporting the ban on the massive LGBTQ propaganda event, Europride 2022, which was scheduled to be in Belgrade, September 12-18. It was supposed to include a big parade and homosexual activists from all over the Western world. The Patriarch said that the LGBTQ issue was “artificially imposed” on Serbia, that it was “completely contrary to our nation’s value system” and threatened the traditional values of all religions—not only the Orthodox Serbs but also their Catholic and Muslim neighbors.

A host of EU bigwigs and various Western bien-pensants have declared they would join the rally regardless of the ban, and those Western leaders who called on the Serbian authorities to allow the event to go ahead included U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Judging by Western media coverage, as exemplified in The Washington Post, there is simply no more pressing issue in today’s Serbia than that of “gay rights.”

Meanwhile, the plight of the Christian remnant in Kosovo—brutally oppressed by the terrorist Albanian Muslim regime, which was enthroned by NATO bombs in 1999—remains as unfit to print as ever.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (Ismeretlen / via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain) and Serbian Patriarch Porfirije, 2022 (Andrija12345678 / via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Comments (10)

I like the ideas of differing peoples having different cultures, legal systems, and specific values. At the same time, all these cultures laws, and values must exist under the umbrella of natural law. Natural law being the universal forms that are true of and benefit all peoples. But each nation is a particular. There is a wide range of acceptable particulars underneath the universal umbrella. For example, are the particular Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. However, all who believe in the gospel and are indwelt by His Spirit are a part of the universal church.

https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/

September 8, 2022 RMB Reply
Metropolitan Teodosie of Tomis/Constanza in Romania is worth mentioning for the same reasons.

September 8, 2022 G M Davis Reply
I look to you, George Friedman, and Peter Ziehan, to get a handle on what’s really going on geopolitically. Peter says globalization is over (the Deplorables say “no more; you cannot have our children, our savings capital, our jobs, sent overseas to hold up the World like Atlas and guarantee everyone’s security, NOT while we are crumbling and dilapidating over here”). He says the World will revert to a collection of largely self-contained, empire-like groupings without the stink of colonial subjugation. Ours will be North America, probably with UK, Australia and NZ, Japan, Columbia and Chile. George thinks the Intermarium of former Warsaw Pact states and portions of former SSRs (Baltics, perhaps most of Ukraine, some of Belarus perhaps?) will become a strong grouping. If so, then I can see a new Latin League (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium) forming with its own nuclear umbrella and powerplants. Germany would go into a Northern Community with Scandinavia, taking the Netherlands along with it, leaving a Greco-Serbian Balkans formation, perhaps with a reinforcing assist from Intermarium and Latin League. China will probably break up into component parts like the Soviets did, while Turkey reconstitutes some kind of Ottoman-like entity, and so on throughout the rest of the World. Offshoring will be replaced with reshoring, nearshoring and friendshoring. Global trade across the oceans, without aU.S.Navy guaranteeing Safe Conduct EVERYWHERE, will largely end, with “smash & grab” piracy putting it into its grave. One thing China has taught us is that economic/financial matters are not stand-alone propositions divorced from geopolitical considerations, and the society-grounding principles of those nations involved with economic/financial matters. The Soviets, through Solzhenitsyn, have taught us to not forget God in all our worldly dealings and considerations.

September 11, 2022 Larry Bowen Reply
Arguably plausible scenarios, with a major exception: “China will probably break up into component parts like the Soviets did.” No, it will not. The Han nation is culturally integrated and politically adverse to experimentation, unless the “heavenly mandate” is visibly removed with the plight of hunger at home and invasion from abroad — which is unlikely. China’s breakup was possible, albeit never particularly likely, during the “century of humiliation” which started with the First Opium War. Today and for many years to come it is less likely than the breakup of Russia and the United States.

September 11, 2022 Srdja Trifkovic Reply
We are struggling for the soul of America also, to the extent that it has any soul left.

September 12, 2022 Clyde Wilson Reply
In the few years that I left, I will be watching.

September 13, 2022 Laura Ukura-Leir Reply
To Mr. Trifkovic: Mr. Goldman’s book, “You Will Be Assimilated; China’s Plan To Sino-Form The World” leads me to think otherwise. They, too, are just another Empire, with the Han as the major component, and they tend to adhere fervently to the “Strongman/Emperor” model BECAUSE they have tendency to fall into extremely violent infighting (WarLordism). Losing The Mandate of Heaven IS THE KEY to their downfall, which both, we AND Russia, must turn that KEY, before they assimilate us as subjugated colonials in their Han “Master Race” Empire. It also occurs to me that the Globalist Kingpins in Europe and here hate having big, strong Nations around as rival centers of power, so ALL THREE (USA, Russia, China) are slated for dismemberment and destruction by them, while the EU is intended to assimilate other competing Nationalist centers of power on the European Continent. They are losing that battle,as implied by Peter Ziehan, and previous Empire models are reasserting themselves in place of the Globalist idea championed by Kingpins on the European Continent and here.

September 14, 2022 Larry Bowen Reply
All the countries that border Serbia know that the Serbian Orthodox Church and Patriarch Porfirije are no light, and Mr. Orban knows that, but because of the large Hungarian minority living in Serbia, he must be restrained, even though he knows the character of the Serbian Church and the state. The Serbian army occupied parts of Hungary on at the end of the First World War, in October 1918, and remained under Serbian rule until August 1921. However, with the Treaty of Trianon, that area remained within the borders of Hungary, so the first success of the revisionist policy can be linked to its recapture (although the terminology may not be precise , because compliance with the treaty returned the settlement to Hungary).

According to contemporary reports, the Serbs had the Hungarian street names erased, even though the roads were dirty, and the Serbian authorities did not invest in the maintenance of the city, because they could not yet know whether it would remain theirs or not. [2] But apart from negligence, there were also atrocities. The occupiers did not hide their violent predisposition from the beginning: in January 1919, the commander of the city, lieutenant colonel Stevo Radovanovich, announced to the inhabitants of Pécs with a Hungarian-language poster that, if they resisted, ‘no one’s life would be spared’, and he would ‘wipe the city off the face of the earth’. [3] The Serbian occupiers took away several priests: Géza Fridrich, parish priest from Baranyavár, parish priest from Püspökbogád, local chaplain and cantor, as well as János Alagics, parish priest from Hercegszőlős – the latter was also physically abused. [4] Civilians were often beaten, but there were also reports of sexual violence. [5] Hungarians who resisted were repeatedly tortured. In 1931, on the tenth anniversary of the liberation of Mohács, several local residents – such as Ödön Wolf and Margit Inkei – approached the Hungarian National Association to provide documents and information about the beating of their relatives. [6]

The Serbian police simply refused to investigate such incidents

One of the most notorious crimes occurred on November 10, 1919, when Serbian troops marauding in Drávatamási shot and killed landowner Jenő Thassy and his four-year-old child Endre. They also tried to kill his wife Ladiszla Inkey, who was three months pregnant, but she and her fetus survived the attack.

The Croatian people felt the aggressive conquering character of Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church in the war of 1990 to 1995.

September 16, 2022 Veco Reply
Dear American, if you want to know something about the historical character of the Serbian Orthodox Church, look for the book SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND FASCISM by the historian Ljubica Štefan, who for personal safety had to leave Belgrade in a hurry in July 1992, where she left all her possessions. She arrived in Zagreb as a refugee. With unprecedented energy in the eighth decade of her life, she continued her research and journalistic work, to which she devoted herself completely. She writes to Jewish organizations and proves that her uncle and she helped Jews in World War II. In 1993, she was awarded the highest Jewish recognition – the charter and medal of the Righteous Among the Nations for rescuing Jews in World War II, which she did as a young girl together with her uncle Luja in Karlovac. He personally receives the highest Jewish honors in Israel. Her name and that of her uncle are carved on the Wall of Honor in the Garden of the Righteous. It is the first in the Yad Vashem Memorial Center in Israel to have Croatia next to its name, instead of the earlier name Yugoslavia. So for the first time, next to the name of Ljubica Štefan and her late uncle Luja Štefan, the name of the Croatian state was engraved. If you don’t have that book in English, look for a Croat, Bosniak, Albanian, Macedonian, Slovene living in America to translate parts of the book for you.

September 16, 2022 Veco Reply
The problem I have with this kind of “ecumenism” is that it is fundamentally a political alliance (an “œcuménisme de convenance” if you will), and has nothing whatsoever to do with the reconcilation of either Protestants (like Mr. Orbán Viktor) or the Eastern Orthodox (like Mr. Pravoslav Perić) with the Church. As a temporary, pragmatic alliance it might be beneficial for the Church and for the faithful in the face of minority status (like in Serbia) or laicism (i.e., secularism), but it cannot be anything more than that. “Extra Ecclesiam nulla omnino salus,” as they say.

December 30, 2022 Juan Manuel Pérez Porrúa Pérez Reply

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