Balázs Birtalan was a Hungarian author, poet, publicist, and psychotherapist, mostly known for his participation in the gay Christian movement in Hungary. He was the son of the poet Ferenc Birtalan. His first poems were published at the age of ten; he has been publishing regularly since the age of 14. He attended the Eötvös József High School in Budapest and graduated in 1988. Raised as non-religious, he became a Christian on February 12, 1989, which was a life-changing experience for him; he was baptized as a Roman Catholic one week later. Between 1990 and 1992 he studied theology at the Esztergom College of Theology and joined a Christian community, from which he was shut out because of his homosexuality in 1993. This led to his launching of the gay Christian movement in Hungary with his friends. They founded the communities Bíborpalást and Öt Kenyér afterwards, in which he took an active part for more than a decade. In 1995 and 1996 he studied psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. He took an intermediate level language exam in English and an advanced level one in Esperanto. Between 1988 and 1998 he earned a living by selling books and CDs; between 1996 and 1997 he taught English. After 1998 he worked at a notary public's office, editing legal instruments. In 2005–2006, he completed the 200-hour method-specific course of the Integrative Psychotherapy Association. He started publishing a blog in 2005. His main topics included religion, compassionate communication, sustainable development, literature, psychology, sociology and philosophy. A collection of his essays, formerly published in his blog, was published in 2008 as a book. From early 2009 on he didn't consider himself a Christian any more. His online nicknames Feanor and Izmael refer to the two authors who significantly shaped his worldview, J. R. R. Tolkien and Daniel Quinn.
Works
From 1983 on several of his poems, articles, and essays were published in these periodicals:
children's and young adults' magazines '
daily papers ' and weekly papers '
literary and cultural journals '
specialist periodicals , as well as
Church magazines .
His collection of poems, B változat was published in 1995. His newer poems are:
Emlékkoszorú – Szonettkoszorú 1992-ből
Versek, 1992–1996
Versek 2005-től
Művirágok a szimbolizmus oltárára
His collection of essays, Aszalt szilva naplementekor – Mémtörténetek was published in late 2008, edited from his blog posts of the preceding years. It addresses a wide range of themes, including biographical writings, sustainable development, compassionate communication, psychology, psychotherapy and hypnosis, Harry Potter, society and tolerance, church, its dogmas, and theology. A complete edition of his blog posts was published posthumously in 2017, titled Sorskönyv nélkül, in 1,000 pages, with recommendation by the psychologist Tamás Vekerdy.
Gay activism
Between 1995 and 2003 he took an active part in Christian gay activism, fighting both the homophobia of the Church and the anti-religious stance of gay communities. His book Halállal lakoljanak? was published in 1997. A documentary with the same title was made in 2003, centered around the author, directed by Bernadett Frivaldszky. He held several lectures in this topic at several conferences. Válaszd az életet! is the shortened version of his book, reworked from a Protestant point of view. It was published in 2004.
