An effort to transfer Tőkés from his post as an assistant pastor in Timișoara and to evict him from his church flat helped trigger the Romanian Revolution, which overthrew Nicolae Ceaușescu and spelled the end of communism in Romania.

Máté Tőkés, who was only three years old during the Revolution of 1989, later collected the memories of the friends, relatives, and other participants of the events, and in 2005 wrote Egymás tükrében ("In Each Other's Mirror"), a book about his parents and the hardships of the family.

An article there on human rights abuses in Romania appears to have been the occasion of his first harassment by the secret police, the Securitate.

He was reassigned to the village of Sânpetru de Câmpie, but refused to go and instead spent two years living in his parents' house in Cluj.

Smaller villages were deemed "irrational" and listed for reduction of services or forced removal of the population and physical destruction.

In the summer of 1988, Tőkés organized opposition to systematisation among Hungarian Reformed Church pastors, again drawing the attention of the Securitate.

After the Securitate objected to a cultural festival organized on 31 October 1988 (Reformation Day), jointly with the amateur Hungarian-language theatre group "Thalia", Bishop László Papp banned all youth activities in the Banat (the region Timișoara is part of).

[9] On 20 March 1989, Tőkés gave a secretly taped TV interview to two Canadians – former politician Michel Clair and Radio-Canada journalist Réjean Roy (released as Dracula's Shadow – The Real Story Behind the Romanian Revolution).

On 31 March 1989, Papp ordered Tőkés to stop preaching in Timișoara and move to the isolated parish of Mineu.

Two days later Bishop Papp sent Tőkés a letter, accusing him of slandering the state and saying lies in the interview, and ordered his expulsion.

At least one, Ernő Ujvárossy, was found dead in the woods outside Timișoara on 14 September,[10] and Tőkés's father was briefly arrested.

And those who saw it were very much shocked, and copies of the interview were spread all over Romania, especially in Transylvania, and it had an unexpected effect upon the public atmosphere in Romania.A court ordered Tőkés' eviction on 20 October.

On 2 November, four attackers armed with knives broke into his flat; Securitate agents looked on while he and his friends fought off the assailants.

[13] Shortly afterwards, workmen arrived to repair the damaged windows and door to the flat; presumably the mayor was hoping to defuse matters, but the crowds actually grew, with some young Romanians joining the Hungarian parishioners.

By 7 pm the crowds extended for several blocks and included many students from the local polytechnic and university, Hungarians and Romanians in a human chain, first singing hymns, but about 7:30 launching into the patriotic song Deșteaptă-te, române!

[18] On Elena Ceaușescu's orders, 40 of the dead were transported by lorry to Bucharest and cremated to make identification impossible.

It was his top priority to win back the properties and schools of the church that had been confiscated by the Communist government, but ownership-restoration in Romania proved to be an extremely difficult, slow and—so far—unsuccessful process[citation needed].

His other notable initiatives are the child-care center in Oradea, an orphanage in Aleșd, Bethesda Health-Care Centre in Arduzel, Peter Reformed Elementary School in Salonta, and a nursing home in Tinca.

[20] Frunda also claimed that Tőkés was helped by President Traian Băsescu and noted that he received 18,000 votes from the historically named Wallachia and Moldavia regions of Romania, places where few Hungarians live.

[22][23] In the 2009 European Parliament election he headed the party list of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania and was re-elected.

[26] Before his term ended in 2019, he announced that he would not run for re-election, stating that the European People's Party had "abandoned Christian Europe".

Considering all this, I have decided to withdraw the 'Romania Star' Order from mister László Tőkés," the head of state said at the Cotroceni Palace.