Castle in Transylvania Renovated with Support from Hungarian Government

Hungarians are proud of the cultural heritage that their ancestors created together with the people living with them in the Carpathian Basin, and therefore they consider it their duty to preserve it, said State Secretary János Nagy on Saturday at the inauguration of the Bethlen Castle in Bahnea, Romania (Szászbonyha, Transylvania). The castle was renovated with the support of the Hungarian government.

János Nagy described the rescue of the castle as a model of value preservation. In his speech at the inauguration ceremony, he recalled that in 2017, the 500th anniversary year of the Reformation, the Transylvanian Reformed Women’s Association gathered more than 6,000 signatures and asked Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to support the renovation and community use of the 500-year-old castle, nationalized under communism and returned in a dilapidated state.

The Hungarian government has provided HUF 2 billion (EUR 5.2 million) to help achieve this community objective.

Nagy noted that the Women’s Association has been helping the sick, the elderly, widows, orphans, the poor, large families, and children since the church was founded. Furthermore, in addition to its charitable service, it is also a worthy follower of the former Reformed women of Transylvania in preserving and enriching cultural values.

“The Reformed Diocese of Transylvania is in the best place to own our historical heritage. Our faith is inseparable from our national culture, which is our past, present, and future. We respect the convictions of others, but we will not give up a single bit of our own faith,” the State Secretary declared.

At the service in the courtyard of the renovated castle, Béla Kató, Bishop of the Reformed Diocese of Transylvania, encouraged the more than 4,000 faithful gathered from all over Transylvania to give thanks. “We receive so much at the community level too. We are born into a family, we are born into the Transylvanian Reformed Church through our baptism, and we are born into the Hungarian nation through our mother tongue. At the same time, we have become the owners of countless values,” the bishop said.

At the inauguration, the President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) said that by renovating the built heritage, the Hungarians of Transylvania are strengthening their national identity and “taking care of what is theirs.”

Hunor Kelemen thanked the Bethlen family, who were dispossessed by the communists in 1948, and driven from their homeland, for donating their historical heritage to the Reformed Diocese of Transylvania as a “generous gesture, a family sacrifice for the community.”

Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Kiss Gábor