Zsuzsanna Répás passed away at the age of fifty-six. She served as the chair of the Ecumenical and Foreign Affairs Committee of the Synod of Reformed Church of Hungary since 2021. She worked in the field of foreign relations, with a focus on the relations among Hungarians living outside of Hungary.
Zsuzsanna Répás was born on 4 July 1966 in Budapest. Since 2003, she served as a representative of the Reformed Presbytery “Budapest-North” in the Synod of the Reformed Church in Hungary, where she was a member since 2007. In 2021, she was elected as the chair of the Ecumenical standing committee which coordinates inter-church and international relations of the RCH. Zsuzsanna Répás was also commemorated by Bishop Zoltán Balog on his social media page. The pastoral president of the Synod wrote: "Dedicated service and loyalty. This represented Zsuzsanna Répás."
She graduated with degrees in chemical engineering, economics, and history. For several years, she taught as a teacher at the Reformed High School on Lónyay Utca, Budapest. Between 1998 and 2002, she worked as the Senior Political Advisor to Zsolt Németh, State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Between 2002 and 2010, she was a member of the Foreign Affairs Cabinet, and Cabinet Secretary for National Policy. From 2010 to 2014 she was Deputy State Secretary for National Policy and Cooperation. She worked in the field of foreign relations, specializing in relations with Hungarians living beyond the borders. At the time of her death, she represented Hungary as Ambassador to the Danube Commission.
Many people knew her as an active participant in the Tusványos summer camps in Transylvania, Romania. In his Facebook post, Balázs Gergely, the main organiser of the Hungarian Cultural Days of Cluj, remembered her as follows. “The last year of your life, which for so many around you seemed to be a hopeless endgame, was for you a time of absolute faith and dedicated struggle for improvement. I could recall many things, but from this treasure city, let me just highlight the fact that overwhelms everything else; without you, Zsuzsanna Répás, the Hungarian Cultural Days of Cluj-Napoca would not have come into being. Thank you for everything, may God rest your soul in peace!"
"We have a lot to thank her for, because it was she who, after the landmark year of 2010 in national cooperation and policy, in the very first years of the establishment of the State Secretariat for National Policy and Cooperation served the cause of all Hungarians and the strengthening of relations between Hungarians abroad and the homeland," said Árpád Pótápi, current State Secretary for National Policy.
Zsuzsanna Répás was active for her entire life serving the Church in ecumenical and international relations. As member of the Synod of the RCH she served for long years on the Committee for international relations and served as its chair beginning in 2021. She was elected as member of the Governing Board of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) in 2018 at the General Assembly in Novi Sad.