The Hungarian Faith Church (Hit Gyülekezete): Domestic and International Activism

Type of Abstract (select): Paper presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Faith Church (Hit Gyülekezete) is a Protestant religious movement which emerged as a semi-underground church in the latter years of the Cold War. Its roots are in the 1970s through a series of contacts with foreign, primarily American, evangelical churches. With the fall of communism in the post-1989 period, the church was able to function openly and today has grown to more than 70,000 members. The church combines elements of evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, but a central theme of the Church is in its philo-Semitism and it fits comfortably into the world of Christian Zionism, a belief in the continuing covenantal role of the Jewish people as God’s Chosen People. In this regard, the Faith Church has been highly active in promoting its beliefs in Hungary, including a deep connection to the Hungarian Jewish community and social and political activism to combat anti-Semitism in Hungary and to encourage good relations with Israel. This activism is not restricted to the domestic scene but has included linkages with Christian Zionist groups internationally and has numerous direct and indirect activities in Israel. This paper focuses on the church’s domestic and transnational activism.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Prof. Jeffery Kaplan is the author or editor of 30 books and over 100 articles and anthology chapters on religious violence, millenarianism, history, terrorism, and reconciliation. His most recent book is The Early Settlement Movement: The Birth Pangs of Gush Emunim, which will be published by Routledge in 2024. He is currently the Senior Distinguished Fellow at the Danube Institute in Budapest, Hungary, and an External Expert with the Islamic Cultural, Educational and Scientific Organization (ICESCO) in Rabat, Morocco.