Pope Francis has appointed Hungarian historian Antal Molnár to head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences for five years, the Hungarian Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

Antal Molnár has been director of the Institute of History of the Research Centre for the Humanities since 2019. The papal committee established in 1954 cooperates with ecclesiastical and non-religious bodies and institutions, focusing on ecumenical dialogue. Molnár is an expert on the early history of the Catholic Church with a focus on relations between Hungary and the Holy See, as well as the history of Hungary and the Balkans in the 16th-17th centuries.