The 20 August national holiday celebrations, which marked the 1023rd anniversary of the Hungarian state’s foundation, concluded last Sunday. While this may seem like a uniquely local Hungarian affair, it has also garnered quite a bit of international attention online, mostly on the social media platform X.
And that attention was almost exclusively positive, with Christians praising the depiction of beautiful religious imagery at a state-of-the-art fireworks and lights show.
While Christianity (and organised religion as a whole) has been on the decline in the West, it is the world’s largest religion with over 2.5 billion adherents.
In Hungary per se, a country that recognises the ‘nation-preserving power of Christianity’ in its Fundamental Law, the number of Christians is around five million, according to the data of the 2022 census, although the majority is only ‘culturally Christian’, and not necessarily churchgoing.
Historically, it was quite appropriate to involve the silhouette of the cross, formed out of illuminated drones, at the end of the fireworks show. That is because King Saint Stephen of Hungary, the person the 20 August holiday is dedicated to, famously adopted the Christian faith for his nation.
The tweet about the holiday festivities that received the most reactions on the platform was made by Eva Vlaardingerbroek. The right-wing Dutch political pundit is known to be a great advocate for Hungary; she has defended our country from attacks trying to prevent it from taking the rotating presidency of the EU Council in the past. This time, she was impressed by our national celebrations, writing: ‘Hungary knows Christ is king’. This post has received over 40,000 likes to date on X.
American columnist and Director of the Network Project at the Danube Institute Rod Dreher also shared his excitement over the 20 August fireworks show on the same platform. He especially liked the depiction of St Stephen’s Crown up in the sky.
The right-wing US news aggregator site Citizen Free Press shared a video of the same event, with many of their readers praising it in the comments. Meanwhile, the Twitter account of the Knights Templar International non-profit news org shared another image of the much-praised drone cross over the Danube River.
