Every Hungarian person could be proud, when a church established 2,000 years ago sets the Hungary Helps Program (HHP) as an example – posted Tristan Azbej on his Facebook page, State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians and the Hungary Helps Program. As he writes, the Syrian Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church Mor Ignatius Aphrem II said on Hír TV how the HHP helps the people to stay in their homeland, and how the program helps the people to return from migration.
„I would like to start with a thank towards the Hungarian people for this generous donation, because this is very important to us,” said the patriarch on the TV show. „We do everything that we can with our good friend Hungary that we help, so Christians could stay in Syria, in Iraq and in the whole Middle East. The help from our friends, the HHP from Hungary is crucial.”
In his speech the patriarch expressed: „Last week and this week we started two programs and also we executed them, which the Hungarian people via the Hungarian Government helped and endorsed. In Homs we built home, we rebuilt houses. Homs is the ancient city where the Syrian crisis started; this was the first city where Christians fled from its old district. With Hungary’ help, the HHP and the State Secretary for the Aid of Persecuted Christians we built one-hundred new apartments, so we can bring back one-hundred family to their homes.”
„I would like to highlight, that Hungary is the only country which came to help the church, came to our temples and helped us directly, and not via international organisations” – said His Holiness Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II in the Hír TV’s program.
Source: visegradpost.com
"Hungarian efforts and actions have not yet been matched by others"
Speech of His Holiness Mor Ignatius Aphrem II Patriarch of Antioch and All the East and Supreme Head of the Universal Syriac Orthodox Church at the 2nd International Conference on Persecuted Christians in Budapest, Hungary