In recent years, Tristan Azbej has become a leading figure in the defense of Christians worldwide. As head of the Hungarian state department dedicated to the defense of persecuted Christians, he has, since 2017, coordinated the humanitarian aid granted by his government to communities whose religious freedom is threatened, mostly in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. The governmental body was, up until recently, the only one among Western nations.

This has given him close exposure to the realities and forms of persecution facing Christians today, an experience he intends to build on as Hungary took over the presidency of the European Council on July 1, for a period of six months. 

Through its “Hungary Helps” program, the State Secretariat for the Aid of Persecuted Christians has provided financial support in recent years for more than 300 projects in favor of threatened or precarious communities around the world. The aim of this stabilization effort in these regions is also to reduce the exodus of these populations and, ultimately, to regulate migratory flows.

To date, Italy and Austria are the only Western countries to have followed Hungary’s lead. While Italy created a fund dedicated to persecuted Christian minorities in 2019, followed by the appointment, in 2023, of a special envoy of the foreign ministry to protect the Christian communities persecuted throughout the world, Austria in turn pledged, at the beginning of August, to allocate 1 million euros each year to the cause. 

“There is a stubborn ignorance in the West of the real persecution of Christians in the world and of the very fact that it is the most persecuted religion in the world,” Tristan Azbej told the Register. “I see that there’s still a long way to go when I hear certain governments or institutions deny the anti-Christian nature of terrorist attacks by groups such as ISIS or Boko Haram, which explicitly target them.”

 

‘Intentional Wall of Silence’

While there are already bodies responsible for combating antisemitism and Islamophobia within the European institutions, the state secretary noted that most political parties do not seem ready to accept this reality for Christians, as if there were something intrinsically guilty about this religion. This denial of reality seems not to spare those who are primarily concerned. 

“Even well-intended Christians in the West think that persecution against Christians is none other than some tragic historical experience dating back to Roman emperors like Diocletian,” Azbej said, referring also to the fact that the narrative conveyed by most Western educational institutions tends to associate Christianity closely with an oppressive and colonizing force in the collective imagination, including that of Christians. This phenomenon, which he calls “Christian guilt,” tends to perpetuate such ignorance.

Over the years, breaking down the “intentional wall of silence and denial” surrounding this widespread scourge has become one of his priorities, which has been reflected in his public speeches and institutional meetings. 

Hungary’s rotating presidency of the EU Council, due to run until Dec. 31, will further this ambition, giving the country the opportunity to dictate the themes on the agenda. A series of international meetings and events with representatives of persecuted groups, designed to raise awareness among decision-makers and the wider public, will be held in parallel. A new special edition of the “Cross-in-Fire” traveling exhibition — which depicts the faces of Christian martyrdom in today’s world and has been held in cities such as London, Washington, New York and Strasbourg, as well as at the Vatican — is also already in preparation. 

 

Protecting Religious Heritage

On the political front, Azbej sees this as an opportunity to ensure that the provisions made by the Council of Europe in 2021 for the protection of religious heritage in regions of the world beset by war and crisis are implemented.

In the same way, efforts will be made to demonstrate the relevance of strengthening collaboration between EU institutions and religious actors in the field, not only to eradicate persecution, but more generally to address humanitarian crises. 

“I know from experience that faith-based humanitarian-development actors operating in the field are very reliable and effective partners with great local knowledge and should therefore not be excluded from EU humanitarian-development policy under the pretext of neutrality or impartiality,” said Azbej

His office’s objective is also to ensure that the EU authorities recognize the role of churches and religious communities in Europe’s wider neighborhood, as far as the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, for the stability of these regions.

 

Defending Christians’ Land Rights 

Ensuring the stability of the lands inhabited by ancestral Christian communities is a sine qua non for their survival, at a time when their total disappearance from certain regions of the world is becoming increasingly likely. 

Anti-Christian fury is currently high in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Nigeria, where more than 8,000 Christians were reportedly killed in 2023. 

“Hungary Helps has been focusing on helping Nigerian Christians, providing humanitarian aid to the internally displaced Christians who are fleeing from murderous attacks from Boko Haram and other organizations, and we will keep doing so in the future,” said Azbej, who mentioned that projects designed to rebuild institutions and improve education and health care also have the effect of regulating migratory flows in the region. 

Hungary Helps is also working on a rehabilitation program for women victims of sexual violence, a common weapon of religious persecution in the regions between Central Asia and West Africa.

In the Middle East, where, despite the withdrawal of the Islamic State terrorist group and the sharp decline in religious persecution, and where the hemorrhaging exodus of Christians continues unabated, the focus is placed on strengthening existing institutions and preserving religious and cultural heritage. 

It was in this cradle of Christianity, in the land of Jesus Christ — where he was sent on a diplomatic mission between 2013 and 2017 — that Azbej saw his vocation to serve Christian minorities around the world blossom, as he witnessed the daily difficulties of their minority position in the Holy Land. 

This early field experience, enriched by an Armenian family heritage, continues to inform his current mission.

“My Armenian roots also taught me from an early age that Christians in many parts of the world had always faced hardship, even persecution, simply for proclaiming the name of Jesus,” he said. “This made me very aware of the plight of my Eastern Christian brothers.”

Hungary Helps’ first missions were dedicated to the Armenian communities of Iraq and Syria, hard hit by the savagery of ISIS. An Armenian community center was recently restored and inaugurated in Damascus, Syria, along with the erection of an apostolic Armenian church in Zakho, Iraq, both with Hungarian funding.

 

Between Christian Solidarity and Political Stability 

The substantial humanitarian aid offered by this ministry to the Armenian population during the 2020-2023 conflict with Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region led to the resumption, at the end of 2022, of diplomatic ties between Hungary and Armenia, which had been severed in 2012. 

Armenia withdrew its ambassador in Hungary after an Azeri officer sentenced to life imprisonment by a Hungarian court for murdering an Armenian officer in Budapest in 2004 was extradited to the Azerbaijani authorities and immediately pardoned. 

While Hungary’s maintenance of close diplomatic and trade relations with Azerbaijan earned it criticism from part of the Christian world, which saw it as inconsistent with its Christian solidarity policies, the political and religious authorities in Armenia saw it as an opportunity. In particular, they sought Hungary’s mediation in the release of Armenian prisoners, in which Azbej played a key role along with other senior government officials. 

“A few days after Christmas 2021, I was on board the Hungarian military plane that took off early in the morning and was, I believe, the first Baku-Yerevan flight in recent history. We went to Baku, where we met our Azerbaijani partners who made the gesture of releasing the Armenian prisoners,” said the state secretary, who has so far received three decorations from Armenian organizations.

For Azbej, solidarity with persecuted Christians has to be framed within a diplomatic balance adapted to complex international relations.

“We operate internationally along three dimensions, the first of which is naturally the promotion of our national interests, reaffirming on the one hand the need for solidarity between Christians and on the other the idea that the world must in all circumstances maintain as much peace and solidarity as possible,” he said. 

This approach stands out from most other EU countries and is likely rooted in Hungary’s history, which has seen numerous invasions over the centuries, culminating in atheistic Soviet domination in the second half of the 20th century. The originality of such an approach and its insistence on the fate of Christian peoples could give rise, over the next six months, to discussions relatively unprecedented in European institutions in recent decades.

“We have been presenting the Hungary Helps model to other governments on a bilateral basis over the past years, offering them concrete solutions for reaching out to vulnerable Christian communities around the world,” Azbej concluded. “This rotating presidency of the European Council offers us a privileged forum to highlight this topic, and we will exploit it wherever possible.”