Hungarian Catholic Bishops Seek Forgiveness For Communist-Era Informants As Secret Police Files Open (Worthy News Investigation)

by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief reporting from Budapest, Hungary

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Hungary’s Catholic bishops have asked forgiveness on behalf of clergy who collaborated with the country’s former Communist dictatorship, as newly opened secret police archives renewed scrutiny of the infiltration of Christian churches.

The Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, representing the country’s largest denomination, acknowledged that some clergy had supplied confidential information about fellow believers and others to Communist state security services, while historical research has implicated senior Church figures, including bishops.

“On their behalf, we ask forgiveness from the victims and their relatives,” the bishops declared in a statement reviewed by Worthy New.

The disclosures have renewed scrutiny of Protestant clergy, including former Reformed Bishop Gusztáv Bölcskei and the late Reformed pastor Kálmán Tarr, whose names appeared in secret police records. Their inclusion, however, does not establish that they knowingly worked as informants.

Unlike the Catholic bishops, Reformed and Lutheran Church leaders did not immediately issue comparable institutional apologies on behalf of clergy who collaborated with Communist authorities, instead emphasizing the painful legacy of the dictatorship and the importance of forgiveness.

CHURCHES UNDER COMMUNISM

The release, ordered by Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s government, made records containing approximately 60,000 names linked to Hungary’s Communist-era state security services publicly searchable for the first time. The surviving files concern the period from 1945 to 1990, although many documents were destroyed or remain incomplete.

Wednesday’s publication coincided with the 70th anniversary of the November 4, 1956, Soviet invasion that crushed Hungary’s anti-Communist uprising, killing thousands and forcing about 200,000 people to flee the country.

The Catholic bishops warned that not everyone listed in state security records had knowingly collaborated. Some clergy were tortured or blackmailed, while others rejected attempts to recruit them as informants.

Authorities sometimes created registration cards for people who never agreed to cooperate, while other documents were destroyed, making it difficult to establish exactly what happened.

Atheist Communist authorities viewed devout Christians and churches as potential threats to their power because faith and independent Church networks challenged the state’s efforts to control society.

CATHOLIC PERSECUTION

The bishops recalled that churches were among the main targets of Communist persecution. More than 100 Catholic priests and members of religious orders were killed, while approximately 2,000 were imprisoned or forced to live in designated locations, according to their declaration.

Some 11,500 monks, nuns and other members of religious orders were expelled from their communities. Religious organizations and Christian youth groups were banned, and most Church schools were taken over by the state.

Among the most prominent victims was Cardinal József Mindszenty, Hungary’s leading Catholic cleric, who was arrested in 1948 and sentenced to life imprisonment the following year. Freed during the 1956 uprising, he sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Budapest after Soviet forces crushed the revolution and remained there until 1971.

Another was Catholic priest György Bulányi, founder of the underground Bokor Christian community, who received a life sentence in 1952 for his religious activities. Finally released in 1960, he continued organizing small Christian communities but also faced opposition from Catholic Church authorities, who restricted his public priestly activities in 1982 before rehabilitating him in 1997.

Bulányi, who later spoke with a Worthy News correspondent, became a prominent advocate of Christian nonviolence and resistance to Communist interference in religious life.

CATHOLIC BISHOPS SCRUTINIZED

Invoking Pope John Paul II’s call to confront painful chapters of history, the bishops said reconciliation required acknowledging wrongdoing without unfairly destroying individual reputations.

They stressed that primary responsibility for the repression rested with the dictatorship’s leaders and intelligence officers rather than solely with people pressured into cooperating, including those listed as informants.

The bishops’ declaration came as newly released records concerning several prominent Catholic figures attracted attention, including Bishop László Kiss-Rigó of Szeged-Csanád, a diocese in southeastern Hungary near the Serbian and Romanian borders.

Others included retired Bishop Miklós Beer of Vác, a historic city north of Budapest along the Danube River, and Asztrik Várszegi, the former head of the Benedictine monastery at Pannonhalma in western Hungary, near Győr.

All three have denied knowingly cooperating with the secret police. Historian Krisztián Ungváry, who examined records concerning the clerics, reported finding no intelligence reports written by them.

COURT RULING

State security records identified the three men as having connections to the intelligence network during the final years of Communist rule, but the circumstances surrounding their registration remain disputed.

Kiss-Rigó previously challenged allegations about his secret police involvement in court. In 2009, a Budapest appeals court ruled that publications alleging he had been recruited as an agent had violated his reputation and awarded him one million forints (about $5,000 at the time) in damages.

Ungváry, who had researched Kiss-Rigó’s records, publicly questioned the court’s assessment of the historical evidence. The bishop has consistently denied having worked for Communist state security.

The cases illustrate the difficulty of distinguishing between people approached by intelligence officers, those listed as informants and individuals who actually supplied information.

Earlier historical research suggests that Communist authorities established extensive networks within Hungary’s Catholic and Protestant leadership.

PROTESTANT INFILTRATION

The findings have raised questions about how deeply Communist authorities influenced Church leadership and whether religious institutions have adequately confronted their past.

Among the Protestant figures drawing attention was former Reformed Bishop Bölcskei, whose name appeared in records under the codename “Bátori,” although registration alone does not establish that he supplied intelligence reports.

Another was Kálmán Tarr, father of Hungary’s Culture and Social Relations Minister Zoltán Tarr. His son has maintained that his father never worked for the secret police.

The appearance of such names has revived questions about the extent to which Communist authorities sought to control Protestant Church leadership and monitor religious communities.

Underground house churches faced surveillance as well, sometimes through members pressured into informing on fellow Christians, according to Worthy News correspondent Stefan J. Bos, whose parents helped persecuted believers behind the Iron Curtain.

HOUSE CHURCHES TARGETED

Bos recalled watching his mother carefully sew money into the lining of her long blue jacket before traveling to Communist-controlled countries to support Christians facing persecution.

His parents were involved in Christian support activities associated with Open Doors, the international ministry known for secretly bringing Bibles to believers under Communist rule.

Their efforts included delivering Bibles and financial assistance and supporting attempts to secure the release of a pastor who had been imprisoned and tortured because of his faith.

The experiences illustrate how surveillance extended beyond established churches into smaller Christian communities, where pressure to inform on fellow believers could undermine relationships built on faith and trust.

József Steinbach, head of the Hungarian Reformed Church’s Synod, described the release of the archives as a painful confrontation with the country’s past.

PROTESTANT LEADERS RESPOND

“The truth can be liberating, yet it can also be devastating,” he wrote, warning that the disclosures could reopen wounds left by decades of secrecy.

Steinbach said the dictatorship had sought to interfere even in the relationship between God and believers, pressuring people called to serve God rather than political authorities.

He urged Christians to recognize the personal tragedies behind individual names while acknowledging that some people had deliberately harmed others.

Hungary’s Lutheran Church has investigated its Communist-era past through historical research aimed at examining the relationship between Church leaders and state security services.

Presiding Bishop János Szemerei supported confronting that history while warning against treating every person registered by the secret police as equally responsible for the dictatorship’s actions.

FAMILIES FACE PAINFUL DISCOVERIES

Lutheran pastor and researcher Máté Joób warned that the disclosures could affect children and grandchildren who discover that relatives they loved or respected were registered by Communist state security services.

“A name, however, is not yet a story,” Joób wrote in the Lutheran publication Evangélikus Élet (Evangelical Life), drawing on his research into the lasting consequences of collaboration and secrecy.

He encouraged families to distinguish established facts from assumptions, noting that intelligence documents do not always reveal whether someone cooperated voluntarily, acted under pressure or resisted recruitment.

Joób stressed the importance of discussing painful discoveries with relatives rather than allowing historical records alone to define a person’s entire life.

The newly opened archives have brought renewed attention to questions of responsibility, betrayal and forgiveness more than three decades after Hungary abandoned Communist rule.

Catholic bishops made clear that reconciliation ultimately requires acknowledging wrongdoing while recognizing that revenge and hatred cannot heal the wounds of the past.