M1 — Hagyatek
20260920 040000 UTC
314 transcript segments
Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking
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Machine transcription. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a verbatim quotation record.

[00:05:08] family, their
[00:06:25] Every year on August 20th, hundreds of thousands of Hungarians
[00:06:28] pilgrimage to Budapest to see a hand that has remained in astonishing
[00:06:32] integrity for a thousand years. They arrive
[00:06:35] from within our borders, from the parts torn away in Trianon,
[00:06:38] from Western Europe, and even from overseas, to draw strength
[00:06:42] and hope from its holy relic.
[00:06:45] What is this force that gathers the nation around the
[00:06:49] Holy Right Hand year after year, where does that special, moving
[00:06:53] aura come from that touches everyone in its vicinity?
[00:07:30] A man's hand, a
[00:07:34] very delicate man's hand,
[00:07:37] for over a millennium, the Holy Right Hand has shrunk
[00:07:41] somewhat, but our king was not
[00:07:45] originally a big-handed person.
[00:07:47] He must have been a very beautiful sight.
[00:07:51] I experience this very deeply, and indeed, when I first took it out of the
[00:07:54] reliquary, tears welled up in my eyes, and I touched it so
[00:07:58] timidly, my God, what am I holding
[00:08:01] in my hand, and I realized that even people who are not
[00:08:04] necessarily close to faith,
[00:08:08] when they come near it,
[00:08:12] stand there in awe and look at it.
[00:08:15] Around the right hand of our holy king,
[00:08:17] the history of our
[00:08:21] people almost tangibly condenses. It not only accompanied us throughout
[00:08:25] the past thousand years, but experienced
[00:08:28] it with us, surrounded by adoration and
[00:08:31] respect when the nation was successful and
[00:08:35] strong, and suffered with the Hungarians during times of
[00:08:38] hardship, from the trials that awaited it, directly. In its fate,
[00:08:42] the first great
[00:08:43] miracle
[00:08:47] was that it was found at all, and could become
[00:08:50] our national relic. Our holy king Stephen, when
[00:08:53] he died in 1038,
[00:08:55] was buried in Székesfehérvár, and when
[00:08:59] he was exhumed for his canonization, which is what they always
[00:09:02] do, in modern terms, when they exhumed
[00:09:05] him, they couldn't find his right hand.
[00:09:08] They were astonished, and later it turned out that a monk
[00:09:12] named Mercurius was there at the time and
[00:09:16] took this right hand and carried it to his own territory,
[00:09:19] to what is now Biharvár county, and hid it in the
[00:09:23] monastery there for a whole year, when King
[00:09:26] Ladislaus passed by, and then he confessed this great
[00:09:30] secret to him, that he had indeed stolen King Stephen's
[00:09:33] right hand, because only the bones of the holy king
[00:09:37] remained, and he was very fired up by the fact that the right hand
[00:09:40] remained perfectly intact, and he thought
[00:09:44] that this must have some significance,
[00:09:48] why exactly this right hand, the hand with which he did so much good,
[00:09:51] with which he tried to realize God's love in his
[00:09:55] governance, as our nation's founding king,
[00:09:59] and this hand will undoubtedly
[00:10:02] be a guide for the future as well, so King
[00:10:06] Ladislaus did not punish him, but said, all right, then let it stay there for now,
[00:10:10] and Stephen's right hand remained there.
[00:10:14] "Where are you, King
[00:10:16] Stephen,
[00:10:18] you,
[00:10:20] the Hungarian nation,
[00:10:23] in mournful
[00:10:25] attire,
[00:10:28] before you is
[00:10:31] peace. The disaster of Mohács and the Turkish
[00:10:34] conquest brought not only the nation but also the Holy Right Hand through times of
[00:10:38] Calvary. The wars that flared up again and again, the
[00:10:41] Turkish, Tatar, and Western mercenary robber gangs, forced
[00:10:45] thousands of Hungarian families to flee. The right hand of the Holy King
[00:10:48] shared their fate. It also wandered for a long time. The
[00:10:52] Hungarians didn't even know for two long centuries.
[00:11:03] It ended up in Bosnia. There, nearly half a century later, Christian
[00:11:07] merchants found it, who bought it and took it to
[00:11:10] Ragusa. No one knew anything about it back home.
[00:11:14] It was only a good century and a half later that some Hungarian
[00:11:17] gentlemen visiting the city noticed with astonishment that the
[00:11:20] monastery's relic was none other than Saint Stephen's finally lost
[00:11:23] right hand. The Dalmatian monks, of course, clung to
[00:11:27] their cherished treasure, and thus the Holy Right Hand could only return
[00:11:31] from its exile after long diplomatic maneuvers
[00:11:34] in 1771.
[00:11:41] After nearly two peaceful centuries, the entire thousand-year-old Hungarian
[00:11:45] statehood was swept away by the Soviet conquest, the red flood
[00:11:48] did not spare our national relics either. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian
[00:11:52] refugees were again followed by the Holy Right Hand. towards the West.
[00:11:56] They tried to smuggle it abroad along with the
[00:11:59] coronation regalia, so it was sent back
[00:12:03] from Switzerland, almost at the Pope's command, saying that the Holy
[00:12:06] Right Hand belongs in Hungary.
[00:12:09] When it returned, it was guarded in several places,
[00:12:12] but by the end of the war, Budapest became the final
[00:12:16] destination. Huge processions were held
[00:12:19] with it, and then finally in 1950 it was placed in the...
[00:12:23] St. Stephen's Basilica, since then, well, I think it has
[00:12:26] become a bit of our national shrine because of this, St. Stephen's
[00:12:30] Basilica, it was intended to be the representative
[00:12:33] church of the country's capital, and since it was built
[00:12:36] in honor of the Holy King, then the most worthy
[00:12:40] place for the Holy Right Hand is precisely St. Stephen's
[00:12:43] Basilica. From 1950
[00:12:47] onwards, practically, the Holy Right Hand was kept
[00:12:50] in a tabernacle, but... there were
[00:12:53] times when the parish priest kept it in his own apartment, because he was also afraid
[00:12:57] that unauthorized persons would take it from the
[00:13:00] church, and he was truly the guardian of the Holy
[00:13:03] Right Hand.
[00:13:16] Oh, Saint Stephen,
[00:13:19] praised be,
[00:13:23] go and rise.
[00:13:42] St. Stephen's country could disappear from the map for a time,
[00:13:45] conquering hands could mutilate it, but in the hearts of Hungarians,
[00:13:48] preserved in prayers and supplications,
[00:13:51] the homeland he bequeathed to us existed intact.
[00:13:55] "When our ancestors feared for the Holy Right Hand, rescued it,
[00:13:58] hid it, they also clung to the king's arm,
[00:14:01] which gave strength through the centuries. The veneration of
[00:14:05] relics is a very, very old thing, it almost dates back to the
[00:14:08] beginnings of the Church, when
[00:14:11] the first witnesses, who lived for Christ,
[00:14:15] also died for Christ, the martyrs, the martyrs,
[00:14:19] were immensely revered in the early Church, and it very
[00:14:22] often happened indeed, that we... "even
[00:14:25] a piece of their clothing, or anything they acquired,
[00:14:29] special signs and miracles also occurred around it, and
[00:14:32] a veneration of things related to saints, which
[00:14:36] we call relics, began to grow,
[00:14:40] which still exists in the Catholic Church today, well,
[00:14:43] of course, here we are primarily talking about the bones of saints
[00:14:47] and other things, those are primarily what we usually treat
[00:14:51] with special reverence, well, so King Stephen's... "the mummified, preserved
[00:14:55] right hand, we must say
[00:14:58] that it is truly a relic that has transcended
[00:15:02] being merely the preserved hand of a holy king, it goes beyond
[00:15:05] that, and it has become a symbol for the entire country
[00:15:09] as a relic that should be followed. The owner of the Holy
[00:15:13] Right Hand, King Stephen,
[00:15:16] is not only
[00:15:18] a saint of the Church, a saint of the Eastern and
[00:15:22] Western Churches alike today.
[00:15:25] "but the king who founded
[00:15:29] the Christian state of the Hungarian nation, so
[00:15:33] that's why we call him the founding king, there was a Hungarian
[00:15:37] state here before him. "so we mustn't
[00:15:39] imagine that some wild, running
[00:15:43] people were just haphazardly splashing around in the Carpathian Basin, and
[00:15:46] then they had to be brought to order, here it was a high
[00:15:49] culture that owned
[00:15:52] and still owns the
[00:15:55] Carpathian Basin, and the complete introduction
[00:15:59] into the Christian faith, and the
[00:16:02] organization of a state according to the pure principles
[00:16:06] of Christianity. "This is what King Stephen
[00:16:09] did. Hail Géza's son,
[00:16:13] Stephen, our
[00:16:14] hope.
[00:16:18] Blessings upon him,
[00:16:21] may he be our good
[00:16:24] leader.
[00:16:27] The holy king not only left his country to his people, but also
[00:16:31] his uniquely rich spiritual and intellectual heritage. His admonitions
[00:16:34] were originally intended for his tragically young, deceased son. "But his
[00:16:38] thoughts over the centuries became the cornerstone of the nation's
[00:16:41] shared wisdom. He wrote his admonitions
[00:16:44] to his son, I am always amazed at how wise
[00:16:48] and beautiful guidance he gives him about the
[00:16:51] one-language nation, how terribly
[00:16:54] poor, simple, it is astonishing how
[00:16:57] much from faith it stems, but at the same time with great
[00:17:01] political sense, he shaped it for a millennium,
[00:17:04] for millennia, I hope, he shaped its
[00:17:07] future. He wrote it in 1015
[00:17:11] for his successor, Prince Imre,
[00:17:15] but in the end it was meant for all his successors, and the
[00:17:19] admonitions were treated as such. Now,
[00:17:22] in this, the King writes a thousand
[00:17:25] years ago, that you should engrave it in your mind,
[00:17:28] every person is born in the same state.
[00:17:30] You know, today's
[00:17:32] world says that modern times
[00:17:36] are the product of human rights, and the basis of that is what
[00:17:40] I just quoted, because it's a bit
[00:17:44] clumsily phrased as everyone is born equal,
[00:17:48] but actually our aptitudes, our abilities, our
[00:17:51] circumstances, those are different, the King is
[00:17:54] very precise, looking at the 1001 law code, that is,
[00:17:58] the law code issued after his coronation, for example, there is
[00:18:01] a provision that if a person of servile
[00:18:04] status is at the head of a county, or at the head of a royal estate,
[00:18:08] then his word before the judge is equal to that of the
[00:18:11] Istvánoks. This is astonishing, so
[00:18:14] yes, every person is born in the same state, and the law code
[00:18:18] is consistent with this. This was the practice. The
[00:18:21] Árpáds followed this throughout, so King Stephen's
[00:18:25] successors followed
[00:18:27] it. And even later, under the
[00:18:31] elected kings, when King Stephen's
[00:18:35] legacy and ideology
[00:18:37] and provisions were no longer so vividly alive,
[00:18:41] a ruler whom we still look up to today, King
[00:18:44] Matthias, who elevates Pál Kinizsi, because he is the
[00:18:47] capable one. This is not Matthias's
[00:18:51] extraordinary peculiarity, but simply
[00:18:53] that as an honest Hungarian
[00:18:57] the provisions of the
[00:19:00] ancients, he follows King Stephen's
[00:19:03] laws and practices.
[00:19:39] It also states that tyrants must be swept away,
[00:19:42] and it even tells us, which
[00:19:45] I can kindly recommend to today's parliament and the
[00:19:48] voters, that a royal
[00:19:51] council, back then this was the
[00:19:55] group that determined governance
[00:19:58] in the country,
[00:20:00] to put it together from stupid, pompous and mediocre
[00:20:04] people, I think, is worthless. "I quoted
[00:20:07] this translation quite accurately just now, the original is in Latin,
[00:20:11] one can even feel the king's smile behind it,
[00:20:14] the experience and his smile, that
[00:20:18] nothing can be done with mediocre people, and then he adds,
[00:20:22] because nothing elevates but
[00:20:25] humility, and nothing casts down but arrogance and
[00:20:29] hatred. Please, for the 20th and 21st
[00:20:32] centuries, this is an especially important instruction, the king formulates
[00:20:36] very precisely. Everyone should look at their own life
[00:20:39] as well, if they approach their
[00:20:43] spouse, their
[00:20:46] environment with humble love, not to...
[00:20:52] the humility that the king speaks of is not a
[00:20:55] submission, not sneakiness,
[00:20:58] but the appreciation of the other.
[00:21:16] Posterity looks back on St. Stephen's life's work as something that
[00:21:20] began, and many feel that with his ascension to the throne,
[00:21:24] something definitively ended. The king undoubtedly
[00:21:27] knew that with his reign he was laying the foundations of a new
[00:21:31] era, but also that this could not be built on the denial of ancestors. He was a
[00:21:35] Christian ruler who lived his faith deeply, but also a descendant
[00:21:38] of the Turul clan, who never forgot, and certainly never persecuted
[00:21:42] the heritage
[00:21:43] of his predecessors.
[00:21:50] "Following our ancestors occupies the eighth place in royal
[00:21:54] dignity. The greatest royal embellishment, in my
[00:21:57] opinion, is to follow royal predecessors, to
[00:22:00] imitate parents. For he who despises what his paternal
[00:22:03] ancestors prescribed, also disregards divine laws. For
[00:22:07] fathers are fathers so that they may guide their sons, and sons are
[00:22:11] sons so that they may obey their parents. He who opposes
[00:22:14] his father, opposes God's
[00:22:17] enemy.
[00:22:21] "He himself dictates in his
[00:22:23] admonitions that ancestors must be respected,
[00:22:27] he did not break anything, for example, the
[00:22:30] Hungarian script, which has recently emerged,
[00:22:34] you know, because it was plastered over in many
[00:22:37] places later,
[00:22:40] for example, because it did not conform to the
[00:22:44] ruling thought from the 16th century
[00:22:47] to the 20th century,
[00:22:50] from this we single out the blessed King Charles
[00:22:53] IV, because if one looks into it, they know that
[00:22:57] it would be wrong to include him there,
[00:23:00] but overall, it must be said that yes, in
[00:23:03] Upper Hungary, they plastered over
[00:23:06] carved Hungarian script texts, short
[00:23:10] texts, or but among the Szeklers,
[00:23:13] where I am from, I am Szekler, I was born in Csíksomlyó,
[00:23:16] among the Szeklers, this script remained, which is why it is called Szekler
[00:23:20] runic script today, and you know,
[00:23:23] they dug up a document, on which it is claimed
[00:23:26] that King Stephen ordered that
[00:23:29] it is forbidden to write with this script, and anything that emerges
[00:23:32] must be destroyed, this is simply not true, it is a forgery,
[00:23:36] we would not know the Szekler runic script, we would not
[00:23:39] know it if the king had wanted to destroy
[00:23:42] it. In 1972, in the yearbook
[00:23:46] of the Jósa András Museum in Nyíregyháza,
[00:23:49] a volume
[00:23:50] was published
[00:23:53] that contained the text of a decree attributed to St. Stephen.
[00:23:56] The decree stated that
[00:23:59] runic script should not be used, it should be
[00:24:03] burned, and those who use it were to be severely punished.
[00:24:08] decree. We have 10 St. Stephen's
[00:24:12] laws, obviously, two of them
[00:24:15] are certainly forgeries, late
[00:24:18] forgeries. And as for the others, there is a debate as to whether
[00:24:22] 5% is a forgery, or 90%. Now,
[00:24:26] this one that has just appeared, this is the
[00:24:29] worst, whoever forged it, has never in their life
[00:24:32] seen a St. Stephen-era decree. For example, it contains the
[00:24:35] following errors: the dating reads
[00:24:39] "dated in the Vatican in a thousand," now
[00:24:42] in a thousand, there was no Vatican yet, only
[00:24:44] around 1200, so there's already an error
[00:24:48] here, and then the text begins with "Stephen the First and the members
[00:24:51] of the council." Now, in a thousand, at the time of St. Stephen's
[00:24:54] coronation, they did not yet speak of Stephen the First. For that,
[00:24:58] they had to wait for the second one. Even if they suspected that
[00:25:02] Stephen would be the first anyway, they still didn't use it, because there was
[00:25:06] no more. So these are just the first few words, and it's already full
[00:25:10] of such serious errors, the whole country took it seriously.
[00:25:13] They thought that if something appeared in a museum yearbook, then
[00:25:17] it could be taken as gospel, and... "in addition,
[00:25:20] the public mood was inclined to criticize St. Stephen,
[00:25:24] St. Stephen did not order the
[00:25:28] persecution of
[00:25:29] runic script.
[00:25:36] Lord Jesus said,
[00:25:39] those who live by the sword will perish by the sword, but between two fires,
[00:25:42] in a chosen path, only a fool
[00:25:46] hopes for peace. A commanding
[00:25:50] and strong person can create a great, firm empire,
[00:25:54] his own era may bow before him, but it is not certain that
[00:25:57] his nation will pray for him after his death.