The Role of the Churches in the Construction of the Civil Society in Hungary

 Zsuzsanna Bogre

Pazmany Peter Catholic University Budapest/Piliscsaba

Short summary:

In today’s Hungary, the civil society is not well-developed yet, mostly for historical reasons. Citizens are involved mainly in their private sphere if life, neglecting the public sphere. While it is becoming increasingly urgent that this attitude changes, the question arises what role the church plays in this process. 

Conceptual frameworks:

My understanding is the church (in this statements it is I refer to mainly Roman Catholic Church of Hungary) as a network of communities, which might involve communities of the most different types of organisation, from the loose framework of the religious congregations to the smaller communities operating within them, or from the different groups of the leaders of the churches, the priests to the various circles of the believers. The essence of the church in this concept is the social representation of religion, which cannot take place in any other way but by the people congregating in a place and mutually reinforcing each other in their religious faith. This means that the religion can only survive in a place where people are essentially open to others with whom they interact and communicate in groups.

My understanding is the civil society as the arena where multifold social movements women’s groups, religious groups, neighbourhood associations, etc. , constitute themselves in an ensemble of arrangements to express themselves and seek to advance their interests. In this arena the solidarity and the subsidiarity are the underlying principles.  

In theory, there is a close correlation between the two social fields. In a nutshell we could say that the church builds one part of the civil society during its the fulfilment of its task. But in the contemporary Hungarian society the question is more complicated as I describe in more detail later on.

What was the connection between the church and the civil society before the Word War II. , during the communist system, and after the social changing (1989).

1. Church organisations and the civil society in Hungary before and after World War II.

By the stimulation of the church, associations, communities and religious organisations operating on different religious grounds were established in Hungary. There are exact data about these organisations. If we consider only the Roman Catholic Church, the KALOT (Katolikus Agrárifjúsági Legényegyletek Országos Testülete, National Body of Catholic Agricultural Youth Societies) had organisations in 4 500 villages in 1944, with almost half a million members. According to a catholic almanac of 1948, 7 522 religious organisations worked in Hungary, with a total of 708 000 members.

Within the communist –type system established in Hungary after the Second World War the state dissolved the institutions of civil society. Foundations, religious organizations, publishing houses were regarded by the state as suspicious and were banned in the 1950s. The entire mode of functioning of society changed radically, the private life-world was colonised (expression of Habermas) and the principle of solidarity and subsidiarity were abolished.

2. The limited space of action of the churches, and the civil society in Hungary during the communist period

During the communist period the churches could be taken as a places for alternative thinking on worldview–political–cultural aspect in Hungary. In this view the churches were among the basic agencies which mobilised resistance and protest, structured pro-democracy groups, and coordinated anticommunist revolutions. The churches in Hungary (like everywhere in Central-Eastern Europe) were specific “islands of freedom”, the only places which were not entirely controlled by the regime.

Admittedly, in this situation between the participants of the religious organizations were both believers and unbelievers. Members of the religious groups opposed communism because it was totalitarian and atheistic. The base of the public sourse of solidarity was the opposition, against the state. We can call this “negative solidarity”.

In addition, if somebody took part in or dealt with the political sphere, public issues, that person was suspicious in the eye of the opposition because of the political issue, the public sphere and the party-membership meant the same. Consequently, the ordinary people, especially those in the opposition, could maintain resistance against the party-state by being passive on the public sphere.

3. Chuch and civil society in Hungary after the systemic change of 1989

After the collapse of the party-state the opposition disunited. Gradually in the post-communist era the church as a place of the opponents lost importance and the latent political role they used to have before and during the revolutions of 1989. Focusing on the public function of the Catholic Church in Hungary stands before the same dilemma like the Catholic Church in Poland as Cansanova points out. The question is whether to accept the principle of self-organisation of an autonomous civil society based on the plurality and heterogeneity of norms, values, etc., to promote the principle of a homogenous Hungarian Catholic national church. As a Bulgarian sociologist Ina Merdjanova points out similar question arises everywhere in our region. She suggests the best direction would be if the Catholic Church was a “vibrant actor in a viable civil society”.

In my personal point of view the suggagested solution would be a logical presume if the author wouldn’t add the following statements: “The basic problem for the underdeveloped of civil society in most Eastern European countries seems to come not from the “bad” cultural–religious heritage, but from the lack of civic-minded citizens.” As she continue : The “anti-statist” pseudo –civil society that emerged in the communist era has resulted a weakly developed political society. If we accept the last statement -as I believe she is right- then for the developed civil society it is very necessary to change the attitude of the citizens to participate in the public life.

For this reason, I would make a difference between the organizations and leaders of the church and the laity. All of them belong to the church but each of them has other type of role for the institution. The duty of the leaders of the church is to  maintaine and to proclaime the “authentic” message towards all of the society. In this view we can suggest not to choose to intervene at a state level and not to be directly a vibrant actor in a viable civil society. The church should continue its traditional role to organise different type of organisations from smaller communities to various circles of the believers. Without state pressure the basic principle of solidarity and subsidiarity is becoming prevalent in these communities, the members of which could build the civil society based on solidarity and subsidiarity. In other words, the Church’s mission is to teach the basic principles in religions organizations, without seeking the partnership of the state.