Address by Dr. Tamás Sulyok, President of Hungary on Christian Unity Day

"We must deliberately be united as one, and take the agonizing yet liberating step of reconciliation, opening ourselves to one another, so that the world may be convinced that we are truly living for God."

With respect and love, I welcome the citizens, leaders, the representatives of the local churches of Leányfalu, and everyone who has felt called upon to join this community in celebration!

The quoted text is from the sermon of former Benedictine Archpriest of Pannonhalma, Asztrik Várszegi, delivered to the high priests and faithful of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox denominations on the first Christian Unity Day almost three decades ago. 

Inherent in the joy of faith lived in community is the reality of sacrifice for one another.
We Hungarians have long been convinced of this, since the origin of today's commemoration is the 1996 Millennium of the founding of the Pannonhalma Archabbey.

The Pannonhalma Archabbey – a Hungarian church institution going back a thousand years - is as old as the Hungarian state, or almost so, since its existence predates - if only by a few years - the foundation of the Christian and European Hungarian state by St Stephen. 

This means that the Benedictine fathers blessed the homeland before the Christian Hungarian kingdom was even established.

From that time onwards, the Hungarian nation became inseparable from Christianity. Moreover, Hungarian national identity cannot be understood without Christianity. Since then, we have shared in the Gospel, but also the Cross.

As a result, heroes and saints, confessors and martyrs, value creators and preservers—great Hungarians—have followed one another throughout our history. A millennium-long line of the righteous among Hungarians.
Today’s memorial day reminds us that for a thousand years, Christianity has been a part of us - or rather, we have been part of the Christian world - and that this belonging together has been complete and has not suffered from any differences or dividing factors. Indeed, long and difficult times had to pass before we moved from denominational confrontation to embracing community with one another, and recognizing that we are heading in the same direction. 

Even if sometimes stumbling, we walk the same path.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Six decades before the Pannonhalma Millennium in 1996, a young German Lutheran pastor, during the most difficult years of Nazi rule, wrote the following: '

One Christian needs another to hear God's word; they need this again and again, whenever they become uncertain or discouraged—for it would be pure self-deception to think they could help themselves by their own strength. They rely on their brother, the bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who remained steadfast in his faith and the values that flowed from it under all circumstances, was one of the greatest opponents of Nazi ideology. He spent years in Nazi concentration camps before being executed. The martyred pastor's statement sounds self-evident today. 

After all, who can I rely on if not the one next to me? Who can I count on if not someone who looks at the same things and in the same place as I do? Who can I ask for advice from if not someone who lives his life according to the same values and along the same lines as I do? Who can I trust if not someone with whom I share the same path? 

We Christians are interdependent.

Do we live our daily lives with this in mind? Or do we believe that a thousand years of values and trials have forged us together to the point where we have nothing more to do? Are we walking together or side by side?

Ladies and Gentlemen!

The hand extended toward each other is just the beginning of holding on together. But without that, nothing will happen. The big handshakes must be preceded by many small ones.

And if we hold each other’s right hand tightly, then none of us will fall. After all, in our time, there are plenty of things that can make us slip.

The spirit of the age, which distracts and dissipates attention, which breaks society into atoms and strips it of its values, is slowly creeping towards us. Waves of ideological currents that relativise truth and falsehood, good and evil, and even the human individual, are also crashing towards us. The deliberate blurring of clear concepts is eroding our words. Physical, intellectual, and spiritual complacency tempts us to choose the contingent over the eternal. 

In this age of scattering, can we, Christian Hungarians, gather? For we must choose between God or nothingness, between unity or disintegration, and between common values or individual interests.

The middle way may appear to be in the middle, yet indifference is not a true centre, but itself a choice; one that leads nowhere.

For us, the right direction leads to the other human individual, the other Christian and Hungarian. The message of today is not only that we are one, but that we are together, and that this unity has an active rather than a passive meaning.

There is no substitute for community, for living life in the fullness of community, for the magic of personal relationships. Everything is based on them, on the system of relationships in which I recognise the Hungarian and Christian person standing next to me as belonging to me, with whom we form a community.

And not only in an abstract sense, but in reality, which is realized in shared actions, in the sharing of joy, and in participating in each other’s difficulties.

Ladies and Gentlemen! Dear Citizens of Leányfalu!

Leányfalu is a wonderful village in our homeland. The fact that this community stands up for our Christian unity, gathers together and celebrates it, and even creates a space for it, as the citizens of Leányfalu have done, is to be commended. The Ravasz László Memorial House is a worthy place to strengthen all Hungarian Christians.

I do not want to take the credit away from Leányfalu - but allow me, too, to be proud of it and let me congratulate you on this community space and especially on the exhibitions it hosts. 

Above all, allow me to look beyond this building of bricks to the community of souls. The future of the Village of Leányfalu depends not only on what happens in the world, on the changes in public life, on the tide of negative or positive influences from outside, but also on the cooperation of its inhabitants, that is to say, on the active communities that preserve and enrich its values.

Because beauty is a gift, greatness is the product of our ancestors' work, and all it takes to realise the potential of the present is one or two smart and capable people - but only together can we build a dignifying future for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.

Ladies and Gentlemen!

„The greatest defeat in the world is to get used to evil!” – said László Ravasz. So let us continue doing good, together, in community, so that we may succeed. Let us do all this according to the motto of Blessed Zoltán Meszlényi, “with trust and loyalty.”

On the Day of Christian Unity, I wish for all of us that Hungary may once again be the home of flourishing, vibrant and active communities.

Thank you for your kind attention!

(Leányfalu, 14 September 2024)