Tristan Azbej visited the United States on Monday to attend an international conference on religious freedom and discuss the importance of helping persecuted Christians.
Tristan Azbej, the state secretary for aiding persecuted Christians and the head of the Hungary Helps program, said Hungary has helped more than two million Christians in a difficult situation or facing persecution.
During a visit to the United States on Monday to attend an international conference on religious freedom and talk about the importance of helping persecuted Christians, Azbej said in a video on Facebook, adding that his visit also includes “gathering allies for the Hungary Helps program in the civil and church community” as well as the Trump administration.
Azbej said he had met leaders of the diaspora groups of several Eastern churches in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest on the first two days of his visit.
The state secretary said he had briefed the bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East on the construction of a church as part of the Hungary Helps program, and they had discussed how the program could work with the US administration to help Christianity survive in the Middle East and the Christians who have fled the region to return home.
Azbej also met with Chaldean Catholics from Iraq, who, he said, had expressed their appreciation for Hungary’s reconstruction of a Chaldean Catholic settlement on the Nineveh Plains, and said they wanted to work together with their Hungarian supporters.
Meanwhile, the state secretary said he had told members of the Hungarian diaspora that they could count on the Hungarian government.
The government supports Hungarian diaspora communities through the Korosi Csoma program, Azbej said, adding that it was also asking Hungarian Americans to contribute to bolstering Hungary’s relations, “especially in light of the resurgent Hungary-US ties”.
