The former pastor of Victor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, has criticised his politics of fusing nationalism and ‘Christian values’ as unbiblical.
Voters head to the polls in a crunch election on Sunday, with Orban aiming to extend his 16 years in power. He believes his conservative party has transformed the country into an “illiberal democracy” of “Christian liberty”.
Having officiated at his wedding and baptised two of his children, Gabor Ivanyi now finds himself politically opposed to Orban. The Methodist pastor, aged 74, has also been put on trial by Orban’s government, in a case that human rights observers have deemed a “crackdown on dissent”.
Gabor Ivanyi told Politico that Orban’s politics “has nothing to do with the Bible, with the essence of the Bible”.
Orban, a member of the Reformed Church in Hungary, has put his Christian identity at the forefront of his politics, against what he sees as a more liberal Western Europe. His Fidesz party has been strongly against immigration and asylum seekers. It passed a law against “homosexual and transsexual propaganda” in 2021 and a ban on pride marches in 2025.
The pair once united in their opposition to the Soviet regime, working for a free Hungary. Ivanyi said the split happened when Orban moved more to the right, and claimed the politician offered him “extra financial support” if he were to give his endorsement.
“Nobody had thought that he would turn that much from those values to the far right, or even to fascist ideas, and that he loses all the human values he believed in, or seemed to believe in, at that time,” he said.
The Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship, which Ivanyi leads, is known for its humanitarian work in supporting refugees, including those from Ukraine. Orban has been accused of fueling anti-Ukraine sentiments during the campaign and has blocked EU support for the country in its war with Russia. The church also supports homeless people and runs schools for children from low-income families.
In 2011, it was stripped of its official church status by Orban’s government, a move which was ruled unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights. Money which the court ordered to be paid has since been withheld.
Ivanyi is due to stand trial for alleged “group-committed violence against an official person”, after tax authorities raided his church’s homeless shelter in 2022. The congregation had formed a human chain, with Ivanyi denying he could have hurt the police at his age. The church has accused the government of “political persecution”.
Human Rights Watch have called it a “politically motivated case”, being “part of a wider pattern of the Hungarian government targeting human rights defenders”.
Ivanyi told Politico: “So, I am charged with violence against authority. It was four years ago when the [police] occupied all the offices. And well, sometimes I wish I had beaten them, because then maybe there will be a case, but of course I didn’t. But I think it’s not me who must be in prison, rather Viktor Orbán and [his] gang.”
“The only thing he never asked [of me] is to bury him. But if he would ask, I would do that,” Ivanyi said, raising hopes of the two being reconciled.
On Tuesday, US Vice President JD Vance made the trip to Hungary in an effort to shore up support for Orban, who is behind in the opinion polls. He said Orban was someone who “ferociously advocated" for Hungary and "stands up for the values of western civilisation”.