The number of church-run educational institutions and the number of students in such schools have doubled since 2010, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén said at the year-opening event of the local Catholic secondary and primary school and kindergarten of Kapuvár, in western Hungary, on Monday.
A total of 220,000 children study in Hungary’s 1,067 church-run schools, Semjén said. Since 2010, some 120 churches have been built and 2,800 revamped, he added.
Contrary to western Europe, no church in Hungary has been closed or converted to shopping malls and mosques, Semjén said.
Eurostat figures show that Hungary offered the highest amount of church support compared to GDP in the European Union, he added.
Semjén said that before the nationalisation of church-run schools in 1948, some 60 percent of all schools were operated by churches.
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The Hungarian state respects the inalienable right of people to send their children to church-run schools and believes that such institutions benefit the whole of society, he added.
In the featured photo: Bishop András Veres consecrates the crosses in the Catholic school of Kapuvár with Deputy PM Zsolt Semjén (second on the right) attending the ceremony. Photo by Csaba Krizsán/MTI