The new Hungarian Province has been born

On the 24th June, in Budapest, the Minister General, accompanied by the Definitor General of the region, Br. Jakab Várnai, erected a new Province in Hungary in which the Province of Saint Mary and that of St. John Capistran came together. The day began with the celebration of the Eucharist, presided by the Minister, and then, having read out the Decree of Erection and the appointment of the new Government, Br. José Rodríguez Carballo, addressed an exhortation to all the Friars, wishing them well during the process awaiting them in the construction of the new Entity.

The new Province is composed of 115 Friars, 12 of them in temporary profession. There are 12 Houses, with 2 Filial Houses. The first Minister Provincial, elected by the General Definitory, is Br. Gergely Magyar.

The name of the new entity is “Magna Domina Hungarorum” (The Province of Our Lady Queen of Hungary), whose Feast, very popular in Hungary, is celebrated on the 8th October. John Paul II, during his homily at the inauguration of a chapel with this title in the Vatican Caves, on the 8th October 1980, recalled how Mary, under the title of Our Lady Queen of Hungary, “was constantly beseeched by the people during the most crucial hours of their national life. From the time Saint Stephen entrusted the sacred crown, the venerated symbol of national unity, and the entire population to the care of the Most Holy Virgin up to the painful and disturbing hours of the last world war, the flow of the trusting prayer of the children of Hungary to her, who, through ‘her maternal charity, cares for the brethren of her Son, who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and difficulties’ (LG 62), was never interrupted”.