An article published on Friday accused organist Varnus Xavér of abusing minors. The main claim of the article published in the newspaper Mi Hazánkók is that Hvg.hu also investigated Varnus’ affairs 7 years ago, but in the end they did not publish the article, even though three people involved gave statements to them.
According to Varnus, however, the article by Angéla Füssy, who previously worked for the propaganda newspaper Pesti Srácok, in Magyar Jelen is full of vile slips and false information.
On Sunday, also theologian Rita Perintfalvi in a long post stood by the artist. At the beginning of the post, he wrote that “THIS IS ALSO THE REACTION OF ORGAN ARTIST XAVÉR VARNUS to the undeserved slander and defamation action of the extreme right!”
Márton Gergely, the editor-in-chief of HVG, wrote in response to our question that the article was not published at the time due to the rules of the profession, and the details that have now been published are deliberately omitted and are served with seriously distorting comments in several places. At the same time, Dúra Dúró, the politician of Mi Hazánk, called on the rector of the Academy of Music to carefully consider the immediate cancellation of Varnus Xavér’s New Year’s concert.
Tamás Horovitz, the president of the Debrecen Jewish Community, announced a similar move on Sunday. In his announcement wrote, they were deeply shocked and regretted to learn from the press about one of the participants of the concert, Varnus Xavér. Horovitz wrote that they distanced themselves from the organist and canceled his performance.
In addition to the information about the never-published Hvg.hu article, Magyar Jelen also received a letter written by one of Varnus’ alleged victims to the editor-in-chief of Hvg.hu at the time, complaining that their article about Varnus was not published. Magyar Jelen did not publish the HVG article itself, Angéla Füssy only writes that in the material left in the drawer 7 years ago, three men were presented who were “corrupted and used as sexual toys” by Varnus as a youth, and this had an impact on their entire later lives .
The article first mentions the story of cellist Tamás Mérei, who died of a stroke in 2020, who first claimed in 2017 that Varnus made a sexual offer to him when he was 15 years old, which he refused. Mérei spoke about this anonymously, but Varnus named him in his reply, and their dispute was more publicized at the time, among other things the then Index and Hvg.hu also covered itand it was suggested that Varnus might actually have known Mérei before.
According to the article published in Magyar Jelen, other victims took heart after Mérei’s case, and this is how the story got to the point that three of them told Hvg.hu about Varnus’ approach. The organist allegedly made a sexual offer to one of them when he was also 15 years old, which he refused, and although nothing happened, the approach is “an unpleasant memory to this day”. The other declarant was 14 years old when he received an offer, which he refused, as he said, and has been angry with Varnus ever since.
According to the third speaker, Füssy, he was 16, but according to Perintfalvi, he was 17, when he came into contact with the then 30-year-old organist. For two years, between 1994 and 1996, she was in a cohabitation relationship with Varnus, with whom she traveled to Canada. The article also mentions that one of the victims wrote several upset letters to Hvg.hu after the article was not published.
After the publication of Magyar Jelen’s article, Dóra Dúró, a politician from Mi Hazánk, reacted quite violently in his open letter Varnus called on the rector of the institution to cancel his music academy concert. In response to Telex’s request, the Academy of Music announced on Monday: “During each music season, the Academy of Music hosts a number of accepted concerts in addition to its own events. Varnus Xavér’s concert belongs to the latter, i.e. he rents the hall for his own event. When concluding contracts with the organizers of hosted events, the institution takes into account only artistic and professional aspects, and in fulfilling them, it always observes and complies with its legal and contractual obligations.”
Rita Perintfalvi reacted to the case on Sunday, essentially writing that Füssy did not actually contact any of the alleged victims, and that the questions he asked Varnus were also fundamentally flawed.
According to Perintfalvi’s point of view, Füssy’s article actually reveals that in two cases it was a matter of acknowledged rejection and in one case a relationship based on mutual consent. Regarding the latter, Füssy’s article states that Varnus and the young man lived in a “never-equal, happy relationship”, which according to Perintfalvi may be true, but as he wrote, such a relationship is not abusive. The organist himself wrote about this, he lived in a “romantic relationship” for two years [a fiatallal]who had never before been either his student or his subordinate”, in a love relationship from the beginning.
In a letter sent to our editors, Varnus wrote that in Hungary anyone can get married at the age of 16 with a simple guardianship permit, and the age of sexual consent is even lower, 14 years. He then asked whether Füssy also condemns the 29-year-old Béla Bartók, who married the then 16-year-old Márta Ziegler, and writes that if someone has a 17-year-old lover at the age of 30, it is completely legal in Hungary. Varnus states:
- he has never had a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone that would have violated “constitutional Hungarian laws”;
- never, in any of his relationships, was he in a position of power or superiority with any of his partners, that is, they had no teacher, educator, or superior;
- each of his partners entered into an intimate relationship with him voluntarily and of his own free will.
According to Varnus, Füssy is “accusing himself in an article full of lies and slip-ups, and Róbert Ábrahám is helping him with this,” referring to the former Pesti Srácok journalist who recently accused Márk Lakatos of ensnaring minors. Varnus also mentioned that Füssy had previously been convicted of defamation by a court as a journalist for Pesti Srácok. “He’s been trying to get hold of me for a long time, and now he’s coming back to his readers with a 30-year-old, chewed-up bone story based on fiction,” he added.
It is important to add to this that although the age of consent in Hungary is currently 14, i.e. people older than this can have sexual relations based on their own free will. Before 2002, however, same-sex relationships were governed by a different rule, with an age of consent of 18. In a 2002 decision, the Constitutional Court judged this to be discrimination and prescribed the same age of consent for everyone.
In response to our questions, Angéla Füssy wrote that she herself tried to reach the persons claiming to be hvg.hu, and wrote to the address she found in the material she received. “…but since it’s an old title, I suspect it missed the mark. I confirmed that the story of the unpublished article is true in another way,” he wrote. Füssy doesn’t know what Varnus means by “he’s been looking for a spin on him for a long time”, according to him, he didn’t look for any catch on him, he just followed the information he received.
In his answer, Füssy rejected what Varnus said, i.e. that his article is full of slips, since “it only contains information contained in unpublished hvg articles and the victim’s letter to the editor-in-chief”. According to Füssy, neither Varnus nor hvg.hu responded to his inquiries, and he finds Rita Perintfalvi’s comments “unworthy of a response.” “Regarding the age of the victims, the victim himself writes in this ominous letter that he was 16 years old, I think it’s a shame to argue with the victim himself about this, he only knows how old he was at the time of the events,” he added, and in his opinion it is also telling that he himself Varnus did not deny the articles in the article either, he just “justifies with the legal framework why the current Criminal Code is not a crime. according to what he did”. Füssy emphasized that he also did not claim that Varnus’s act was a crime, he only said that it was “morally reprehensible”.
HVG: We did not publish the article due to professional considerations
In addition to Xavér Varnus, Telex also approached the HVG and the Academy of Music about the matter – we asked the former what their reaction was to the accusation that the case did not see the light of day because of the newspaper, and the latter whether Varnus would give a concert there in December. The editor-in-chief of Hvg.hu, Márton Gergely, wrote in his response that HVG categorically rejects the claim that it would defend those who have been exposed to sexual abuse.
“For us, the protection of young people and those who find themselves in subordinate roles is of the utmost importance, which is why we devoted so much time to the discovery of facts in all matters arising in connection with the Metoo movement”.
“If we didn’t end up with a finished article, it wasn’t because of suicide, but because of the rules of our profession. In 2017, after full legal and journalistic ethics consideration, the chief editor decided not to publish the article that went through multi-phase editing in connection with the named case”
– wrote Gergely in a statement also published on Hvg.huadding that the details that have just been published are deliberately out of place, and in several places are served with seriously distorting comments.
The article was updated after its publication with the Sunday announcement of the president of the Jewish Community of Debrecen, as well as the response of Angéla Füssy and the Academy of Music.
