Zeal for the Gospel in Hungary
06 October 2025
[Estimated reading time: 2 minutes]
MERA listeners meeting in Bóly, Hungary. Pictured (from left to right): Klára Zika, Tibor Kulcsár and Aniko Kulcsár. / Photo: MERA.
In the heart of Budapest, Tibor Kulcsár and Zoltan Nemeshegyi continue to work with great zeal for the gospel message through Magyar Evangeliumi Radio Alapitvany (MERA), a station that has a long history of partnering with TWR. Such is the hunger for the message of Jesus that Tibor, MERA’s director, when asked what he would seek prayer for, simply answered, “More co-workers.”
MERA has been witnessing to Hungarians through the airwaves since its formation in 1992. Even before that, when Hungary was behind the Iron Curtain, there were underground broadcasts with many risking their freedom to make sure the message of Christ was heard. One of those men was Gyula, Zoltan’s grandfather.
“It was only when I came to work for MERA 17 years ago that I found out about my grandfather’s work here,” Zoltan said. “He was a Baptist pastor, and we still have the tapes of some of his sermons that were broadcast. In all, he preached more than 450 sermons. Everything had to be so secret back then that even family members didn’t know they were doing it because of the real fear of punishment by the state police.”
Having broadcast through the medium-wave frequency for many years, MERA has been developing its online presence. This has been a great blessing to full-time workers and volunteers. The history of Hungary plays a key role, as MERA not only seeks to reach those within Hungary (a population of around 9.6 million) but Magyars in the surrounding countries who were essentially displaced when Hungary’s land was carved up following the First World War.
“We are reaching out to Hungarians in Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Serbia, Austria and countries further away,” Tibor said. “For example, in Ukraine there are 200,000 Hungarian citizens, and there are no pastors preaching Hungarian. Our program reached those people via the radio, and it was after 11 p.m. in the evenings, but the neighborhoods came together and sat all together and listened, and then afterwards they had a prayer meeting every single evening until last year when the radio finished. Now we are broadcasting online, and our programs are getting many hits and viewers through YouTube, Facebook and on our website home page.
“We are praying, praying and praying because we never know what our budget is, but the Lord has always provided, and we have never paid a bill late. Even when our roof collapsed a few years ago and the studio was ruined, the Lord sent several men and women we had never met before, and they provided the money to help us get going again. We serve a great God.”
For further information or to support MERA please visit, www.mera.hu.
Image bottom left: Zoltan Nemeshegyi / Photo: MERA.
