Hungary celebrates August 20 national holiday

The state ceremony was attended by President Janos Ader, House Speaker Laszlo Kover, government members and diplomats.

As a traditional part of the ceremony, young army officers took their oaths after hoisting the flag.

In his address to the new officers, Ader said that the nation should take a joint effort “to build a new security for our civic democracy in the 21st century”.

“Building security is up to us, all citizens of Hungary,” the president said, adding that “our world resembles less and less the old one we are accustomed to”.

Ader referred to Stephen I, the founder of Hungarian statehood, and the kings that followed him on the throne, who were committed to building a safe and stable state for the people.

“Hungarians have always found a way to renew that heritage and they could only rely on themselves in those efforts,” Ader added.

Saint Stephen’s legacy suggests “responsibility and loving assistance”, Cardinal Peter Erdo, archbishop of Budapest-Esztergom, said at a traditional August 20 mass celebrated in front of Saint Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest.

In his sermon, Erdo said that “the thousands of people coming to Hungary pose further and further questions to all of us”. He said that the current wave of international migration “exceeds far above our individual or national capacities” but added that “people must face things they may not fully understand; they must act and often there is no time for consideration”.

Speaking at a ceremony in Hodmezovasarhely, government office chief Janos Lazar referred to Saint Stephen as having been not only a founder of statehood but a builder of a Christian Europe. “August 20 is about that dual responsibility; Hungary’s role arising from its geographical location has not changed,” he said, and compared Hungary to a fortress defending the borders of Europe.