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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 31-4-158
TITLE:             New Head of State Office for Religious Affairs
BY:                wf
DATE:              1961-10-23
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungarian Research and Evaluation Note
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Church and State, Personalities

--- Begin ---

X CURT Hew Head of State Office for Religious Affairs F-139

23 October 1961

NEW HEAD OF STATE OFFICE FOR RELIGIOUS AFFAIRS

Hungarian Research and Evaluation Note. -- On 20 October
1961 the Presidium relieved Karoly 01t from the Presidency of the
State Office for Religious Affairs "at his own request", and appointed
Jozsef Prantner to the same position. At the same time Prantner was
given also the rank of a minister.

This is the first time that the President of the Office
has received the rank of a Minister. The Office for Religious
Affairs was created in May 1951 and placed under the direct
supervision of the Council of Ministers. In December 1956 the Office
4 ceased to be an independent organization and was incorporated in
the Ministry of Education. Finally, in June 1959 the Office regained
its pristine status of an independent organ and was again placed
under the supervision of the Council of Ministers. The raising of
the President of the State Office for Religious Affairs to the
rank of minister is in line with the policy adopted this September,
when the Presidents of the Planning Office and of the Committee of
Technical Development were also given the rank of a minister,
(See News Background F-118-123 of 14 September 1961.)

The new President Jozsef Prantner is a former
construction worker. In April 1952, he was appointed commissar of the
State Office for Religious Affairs in the diocese of Vac. At that
time he received the golden degree of the People's Republic Merit
Order for his activity in the Hungarian "Peace" movement. It is
not known how long Prantner was detailed to the Vac diocese. In
July 1957 he was mentioned as member of the Party Committee of
county Tolna of which later he became-the first secretary, an office
he has been holding until now. In November 1958 he was elected
member of Parliament for the county Tolna.

Karoly Olt has so far held a large variety of high
positions: Minister of Social Welfare, Speaker of the Parliament,
Secretary of the Presidium, Minister of Finance (for five years)
and chief of the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers.
In comparison, Prantner's career is "small beer". On 7 October 1961 Olt
was dropped from the Presidium, of which he had been a member since
May 1957. Now that Olt has been relieved also of the Presidency
of the State Office of Religious Affairs, it seems clear that there
has been a decrease in his standing in the regime; all the more so,
as his removal from the State Office was not accompanied by any hint
at a further employment in some other office.

Whether the replacement of Olt with Prantner will involve

[page 2]

X CONGRESS (l) New Head of State Office for Religious Affairs F-140
Hungarian Evaluation Note, page 2

some change in the regime's policy toward the churches is not
yet clear. The pressure exerted by the regime on the Catholic
Church reached a new pitch with the trial of priests and laymen
in June 1961, and there have been signs (for example the severe
attack against the so-called clerical reaction in "Uj Ember" of
3 September 1961) that the pressure would not be eased. Prantner
is not a new hand in the dealings of the State Office for Religious
Affairs with the Catholic. Church, He is known to be a rather
primitive and violent person. He was the commissar of the State
Office for Religious Affairs in the diocese of Vac at the time
when the attacks against the Bishop of Vac, reached their culmination,
and eventually led (early 1957) to the forcible removal of the
Bishop from his diocese and his confinement in the village of Hejce
under police surveillance. Thus Prantner's appointment may have
ominous connotations.

WF/2105

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