Hungarian Church Groups Accuse MARILYN MANSON Of 'Satanism'

Michael Logan of The Budapest Times has issued the following report:

U.S. shock-rocker MARILYN MANSON stirred up religious ire last Tuesday as church groups accused the singer of Satanism and corrupting young people ahead of the Budapest leg of his Against All Gods tour.

The Christian Public Life Academy issued an open invite for people to come to a protest meeting outside Mátyás Church before the singer took to the stage, and several hundred people braved the rain to register their disgust through prayer. Standing in front of the statue of the country's founder, King Saint Stephen, speakers from the academy and other religious groups accused Manson — real name Brian Warner — of intending to burn Bibles during the performance and called him "Satan by another name."

"Manson's concerts are a revised form of Satanism and more of an occult event than a performance," Péter Morvay, editor of religious weekly newspaper Hetek and member of the evangelical Faith Church in Hungary, told The Budapest Times and Budapester Zeitung. "However, trying to stop a concert doesn't make sense, as we are a free country, but he will fail in his mission to corrupt here."

Others displayed a more aggressive attitude. Róbert Szikora, a prominent Christian musician with rock group R-GO, told the tabloid Színes Bulvár that "if I see him in the street I might put aside my Christianity and smack him in the mouth with a stick."

"It's unbelievable that a country of eight-and-a-half million Christians is allowing this concert to go ahead," he said.

However, László Hegedûs, director of Multimedia Concerts Budapest — who organized the Manson concert — was scathing of the protests. "The complaints are from religious preachers who simply want publicity. Marilyn Manson isn't against God, but against organised religion," he told The Budapest Times. "The concerts are just like any other heavy metal show, with kids dressed in black with painted faces. They're not dangerous."

Read the rest of the article at The Budapest Times.