Fraternity-Testvériség, 1956 (34. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1956-09-01 / 9. szám

4

FRATERNITY

But never before going to Budapest had I seen the attendance God’s Church gets in that city. At each service, not only the pews, but the aisles and the corners are packed with people of all ages. Humility and steadfast hope through long suffering — these characterize the Hungarian people, just as they characterized János Hunyadi whose decisive victory of five centuries ago is now being commemorated throughout the civilized world. This great hero would never quit even when only a miracle would turn the tide . . . This great symbol of whom Arany wrote:

“Aren’t you a happy spirit,

In grace and glory, to console us As to the present, and give us Hope as to the future?”

It is five hundred years since western civilization lost that great champion, the Magyar of whom his adversary Mohammed II said, “I mourn his death because the world has seen no greater man.”

Certainly John Hunyadi is one of the noblest figures in history. We know him from the learned Bishop Mihály Horváth as having been blameless in character, pious though not fanatical, just, magnanimous, not incited to revenge by personal injuries. As a citizen, he was characterized by a high sense of duty and a fiery patriotism; as a public servant, he stood for the law; as a statesman, he followed the path of justice and irreproachable righteousness; as a military man, he was, the Italian historian Bonfini said, the best general and the best soldier in one person.

What of this man who cleared the way for the Renaissance and enlightenment? What of this man to whom wherever he went the people of the soil swarmed? What of this man who turned hopeless situations into triumph when, to use the words of Enea Silvio Piccolomini, later Pope Pius II, “Hungary is shaken, she has collapsed and is broken into parts, and there is no connection between those parts”? What of this man, who opposed one of the greatest conquerors of history, the aggressor whose political creed was, “As there is only one God in heaven, there should also be only one master on earth”? What of this man who enabled the Hungarian chronicler Turóczi to write, “Mohammed, who wanted to rule the Universe alone, came amidst much noise of trumpets and drums, amidst great rejoicing, but left sadly and despicably in the quiet of night”?

Let us remember that the Turkish capture of Constanti-