William Penn Life, 1999 (34. évfolyam, 2-12. szám)
1999-08-01 / 8. szám
exponents of the old system and took into royal ownership about twothirds of the country. The rest he distributed to the church, the still faithful chieftains and the German knights who had given him armed assistance. This established stable power and domestic conditions. Heading Westward Stephen followed the Western pattern of dividing his estates among royal counties each centered on a castle, from which a reliable lieutenant could direct affairs. Most economic activity and most of the armed forces came under royal control. German and Italian evangelists helped in the conversion to Christianity. A lay ecclesiastical structure of 10 dioceses and an independent province of Esztergom was founded, and soon augmented with arriving monastic orders. The adoption of Christianity was quickly felt in many fields, the most important being a rapid spread of Christian culture and Western literacy. King Stephen underpinned the new structure and order with statutes designed mainly to protect private property, public peace, morality, the church and Christianity. On his death in 1038, he bequeathed a young, viable, strong, independent country drawing closer :o Western societies. Honoring Stephen Stephen was canonized in 1083. Thereafter the Hungarian king would hold a royal "assize" ("law day") on St. Stephen's Day, Aug. 20, at Székesfehérvár, the royal seat in that period, to hear his subjects' complaints, settle their disputes and pass judgment. It also became customary for the multitude to do homage to St. Stephen at his tomb and before the reliquary of his Holy Right Hand (see related at right). Over the centuries, the assize day lost its judicial importance to the judicial system of the Royal Curia (court). The gathering of the country for the assize gave way to a feudal Diet of nobles and freemen. The administrative center of the country became Buda for most of the period, until the united city of Budapest was declared the capital in 1873. People still travelled in the Middle Ages to the tomb at Székesfehérvár to pay their respects on Aug. 20 to the saintking who founded the state. St. Stephen's Day became a national feast, and remained so for many centuries. After World War II, the celebration of St. Stephen's Day was abolished under the communist system. On Aug. 20,1950, the day became instead Constitution Day, in honor of a new constitution after the Stalinist pattern. An added title during the post-1956 period was the Feast of New Bread, conceived as a national harvest festival. Only with the fall of the partystate system and the free, democratic elections of 1990 could the Aug. 20 Feast of St. Stephen, Founder of the State, regain its true significance as a national festival. The Legacy The life of St. Stephen shows that Hungary's first king was a great figure, and in every respect a constructive, realistic, reforming ruler in a Christian spirit. His greatest historical contribution was his decision to ensure Hungary's survival by attaching it to the Europe of the West. The Hungarian nation honors in St. Stephen, its founder king, a creative figure who set a new course and can be revered as the greatest Hungarian of all time. |\VPL The Holy Right Hand When Pope Gregory VII canonized St. Stephen on Aug. 20,1083, the remains of the saint were elevated from the crypt of the coronation cathedral in Székesfehévár, and the entire right arm was removed and preserved. King László I appointed an abbott called Mercurius to store the right arm of St. Stephen in the county of Bihar, eastern Hungary. Later, an abbey was built on Mercurius' land to keep the arm. It became a pilgrimage site, and eventually a town grew around it called Holy Right (now Siniob, Rumania). The arm remained there until the Tatar invasion of 1241 when King Bela IV took it to Raguza (now Dubrovnik, Croatia) and left it in the care of Dominican monks. In 1590, the monks built a relic holder for the holy relic made of silver and ground glass. Historians agree that the lower and upper arm were detached from the hand by the monks and sent to their current homes. The lower arm is believed to be in Lemberg (Ukraine) while the upper arm was moved to St. Stephen cathedral in Vienna. In 1771, Maria Theresa, the reigning queen of Hungary, returned the Holy Right Hand from Raguza and eventually gave it back to the Hungarians. In 1862, the Hungarian Bishopric ordered a closed, chapelshaped, ornamental relic holder to be built in a neogothic design using silver and ground glass. The smaller relic holder made by the monks was to be placed inside. The small relic holder and hand were taken to the archbish j of Saltzburg, Austria, for safekeeping in 1944. The larger holder remained in the royal palace and was thought to be destroyed when the Allies bombed the palace. On Aug. 20,1945, Pater Fabian Flynn, a U.S. Army priest, returned the hand to Budapest. Eventually, the larger neogothic holder was found in a ditch among the ruins of the palace. Today, the Holy Right Hand rests in St. Stephen cathedral in Budapest. William Penn Lile, August 1999 9
