The pastor accused of murdering six members of his family, Mr Andras Pandy, was a sex-mad disciplinarian who pursued women as fervently as his strict religious creed, acquaintances said.
The revelations came as police announced the discovery of more human remains in one of Mr Pandy's three Brussels houses.
The unoccupied property, in the suburb of Molenbeek, was the same one where police previously uncovered a human leg, pieces of skull, a hip and unidentified pieces of flesh.
The Brussels prosecutor's office issued no details of the new find, but sources said it seemed as if all the remains discovered so far came from the same corpse.
Mr Istvan Steszek, a retired pastor in the Hungarian Protestant church in Belgium, described his former colleague as extremely authoritarian in relation to his family and colleagues.
"We often had the impression that his wife was not only his wife but also his servant and slave," Mr Steszek said, adding that Mr Pandy's rigid disciplinarianism had contributed to the closure of the church's Belgian branch.
He confirmed that Mr Pandy had made contact with around 20 women in the early 1990s after he had advertised for a third wife in Hungarian newspapers.
"He brought one of them, a pretty blonde teacher, about 50, to Belgium two years ago and she has not been heard of since," he said.
At Budakeszi in Hungary, where Mr Pandy also had a home, neighbours said he was always being visited by women at a cabin in the town.
Hungarian police said yesterday they were searching property owned by Mr Pandy for any evidence he may have killed in Hungary. They had not yet discovered evidence of any foul play in their preliminary search of the house in Dunakeszi, 30 km north of Budapest, but had come across family possessions that could help identify remains found in Belgium.