The Holy Father received the Hungarian Prime Minister at the Vatican and the two leaders discussed Hungary's efforts to care for Ukrainian refugees.
Pope Francis received Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for a 40-minute audience on April 21, 2022, the Holy See Press Office announced. Their meeting, the first private face-to-face meeting they've shared, was an opportunity to discuss the issue of refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.
For the moment, neither party has communicated the content of the exchanges. The Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See, Eduard Habsburg, who was part of the Hungarian delegation, spoke of a "cordial" audience.
Saint Martin and Ukrainian refugees
During the audience, the pontiff presented the Prime Minister with a bronze medal depicting St. Martin of Tours, a native of Hungary, "who protected the poor by giving them part of his cloak." The Office of the Holy See emphasized the value of this gift, explaining that the pontiff had referred on this occasion to the protection that Hungary offers to refugees from Ukraine.
In a brief video of the meeting, the Pope can be heard presenting the gift to the Hungarian Prime Minister. The Hungarian Prime Minister smiled and told him not to forget that St. Martin had only given "half his cloak", making the Pope laugh.
625,956 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Hungary since the beginning of the Russian offensive, the Hungarian government spokesman said on April 21. In addition, 17,000 Ukrainian refugees have applied for humanitarian protection and 100,000 have applied for a temporary monthly residence permit.
Meeting marks rapprochement
On the issue of migrants, which had been the bone of contention between the Holy See and Hungary after the migration crisis of summer 2015, the war in Ukraine seems to have allowed a rapprochement regarding the reception of refugees. Moreover, both the pontiff and the Hungarian Prime Minister want to keep channels open with Moscow in order to preserve the possibility of a diplomatic outcome to the conflict.
During the audience, the Hungarian Prime Minister offered the Pope two books on Béla Bartok, a famous Hungarian composer and music theorist. He is a figure very much associated with the birth of Hungarian nationalism because of his work in favor of the rediscovery of the folk repertoire of his country at the beginning of the 20th century. The pontiff, who was known to be a music lover, was also presented with an important collection of lyrical music and an eighteenth-century breviary in English and Latin.
Fourth meeting between the two men
This was the fourth time that the Hungarian Prime Minister met with Pope Francis, but it was the first time that he was able to speak alone with the Argentine pontiff. Last September, during the pontiff's visit to Budapest for the International Eucharistic Congress, the two men spent about 40 minutes together in a meeting held at the airport in the presence of the then president Janos Ader.
Two other meetings, carried out within European delegations, took place in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Viktor Orbán was also received by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 and by his predecessor John Paul II in 2000.
It was also the first official trip of the Prime Minister since his election victory in early April. Viktor Orbán was reconfirmed as head of the Hungarian government after his party won 54.1% of the vote in the parliamentary elections on April 3.
The pope has announced that he will visit Hungary in 2021, a trip that, according to a diplomatic source, should take place in 2023.
