Liturgia ed arte – Icone d’oggi dall’Ungheria

January 28, 2013. (Romereports.com) Byzantine art is timeless, and to showcase it, the Hungarian Academy in Rome put together an exhibit featuring several artists' rendition of modern Christian imagery. The exhibit “Liturgia ed arte – Icone d’oggi dall’Ungheria” (29.11.2012-20.01.2013, Rome) contains 100 icons and other religious items completed within the past 30 years. They display mankind’s openness to the beauty and the dimensions of Divine revelation.

SEBASTIEN TERDIK
Hungarian Academy in Rome

“The Byzantine tradition comes from the first centuries, after the Second Council of Nicea. We follow the teaching that it is possible to use images to pray and also to venerate saints. Byzantine iconography is still in use: Christ Pantocrator, the teaching Christ, also the Madonna. However, since Hungary is the meeting point between West and Eastern cultures, we can see new interpretations of St. Francis of Assisi or St. Anthony of Padua. In the development of art in Western culture, the artist always became an individual, their artwork was an expression of themselves, but in the Byzantine culture, liturgical art was more functional and it showcased the saint, not the artist.”

Hungary has a population of about 10 million people. A majority of them are Catholic, but a large number are also from the Byzantine Orthodox tradition. The art is used as cultural bridge between the two sides of Christianity.

This combined Byzantine art represents new icon portrayals of traditional Western saints. This renewal also shows off the variation of techniques and styles used, which range from the rigidity of the more classical Byzantine art, to the more expressive forms. For art experts, each artist's style is present in their art work, but always in the background.

While the artistic value of Byzantine icons cannot be measured, their beauty has always taken a backseat to their religious purpose. The artist then became the link between God and the people.
Last year marks the centenary of the foundation of the Eparchy of Hajdúdorog in Hungary, which was founded by King Franz Joseph and Pope St. Pius X in 1912 for Hungarian Catholics of the Byzantine rite of the Kingdom of Hungary. After the First World War the eparchy of Hajdúdorog was the only ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Byzantine Rite Catholics in Hungary resized in the Peace Treaty of Paris. Later in 1924, was also erected the Exarchate of Miskolc. There are about 270,000 Catholics of the Byzantine rite of Hungary belonging to these two ecclesiastical districts. In the centenary year, the Eparchy of Hajdúdorog has organized a series of events: liturgical celebrations, pilgrimages, cultural events and scientific. Last summer a group of 1500 Hungarian Byzantine Rite has already made a pilgrimage to Rome.

The eparchy of Hajdúdorog, the Hungarian Academy of Rome and the Greek-Catholic Theological Institute of St. Athanasius Nyíregyháza organized a Cultural day in Rome, at the headquarters of the Hungarian in Via Giulia 1 that had several events: a photo exhibition on the past and present of the Byzantine Rite Catholics of Hungary by Msgr. Fülöp Kocsis, bishop of Hajdúdorog. He later held a scientific conference under the title: "The foundation of the Eparchy of Hajdúdorog for the Hungarians of the Byzantine rite in the political context of the Austro-Hungarian Empire" (1912). The speakers were five scholars from Germany, Austria, Romania and Hungary. After the meeting the father Manel Nin, rector of the Greek College in Rome opened an exhibition of icons, entitled "Liturgy and Art. Icons Hungary today" (Inaugurazione della Mostra "Liturgia e Arte. Icone d'oggi dall'Ungheria" a cura di Szilveszter TERDIK interviene Archimandrita P. Manel NIN OSB, rettore del Collegio Greco). In the classrooms of exposure of the Palace of the Hungarian teachers are exposed icons Hungarian contemporaries. This exhibition was open until January.
Accademia d'Ungheria (Hungarian Academy) is managed by the Ministry of Culture and Public Education of Hungary. The Academy organizes cultural activities and courses of language, conferences, concerts of classical music, literary evenings, film projections. It houses a rich library, founded in 1892, interesting for the history of Hungary and the relationships between Italy and Hungary in literature and art.

The Academy of Hungary in Rome is in via Giulia 1, in the very precious Palazzo Falconieri. The building became the property of the Hungarian government during the period in which the political, cultural and economic relations between the two countries were very strong and intense. In 1927, a Hungarian delegation arrived in Rome with the precise intent to carry out the exchange of two buildings, with the objective of offering a State institution for the divulging of the respective cultures. From 1928,therefore, the Academy of Hungary has its seat in Rome, and the Italian Institute of Culture, in Budapest (via Bródy Sandor, 8). The Hungarians are in the Palazzo Falconieri, the beautiful Baroque building with the grand loggia, built by Borromini, from which an extraordinary panorama of the entire city is revealed. The Italians in Budapest have their seat in the building of the first Hungarian Parliament, built by Miklós Ybl in 1864, in a splendid eclectic, neo-Renaissance Italian style.

Apart from its activity of the divulgation of Hungarian culture, the Academy of Hungary in Rome also accomodates- since 1929- the Hungarian Historic Institute, which had already been founded in Rome in 1894 by Vilmos Fraknói, historian, canonist and promoter of Hungarian historical studies at the Vatican Archives.