King Stephen I., The Saint and His Work


This essay tries to observe the work of the first Hungarian king Saint (1st) Stephen independently from official and common conceptions.

The work of the first, state creating king of Hungarians is well known. He converted pagan Hungarians to Christianity, getting a good shaped nation acceptable to Europe. He turned the former nomadic-pagan-barbarian state kind of structure to valuable state organization in the country. Mildened wild Hungarian hordes running across Europe.
He offered Hugarian country to Saint Mary making inevitable to all the loyalty of Hungarians to the Roman Catholic Church. Also his words to his successor, his son Emericus are well known, that is actually the second constitution in the Western, Christian era. Only Iceland had a constitution earlier in 753 CE.

This could be done with many wars and sacrifices. People loyal to old paganism didn't give up so easy. Rebellious leaders paid heavy prize being slained, blinded, cutted or headed. All these prizes were worth to make the country Euro-conform, Germano-conform better to say.

Really Stephen (Vajk by given name) was the first Hungarian king, grown up and lived after fully Western (European) Roman Catholic values. This also was the key of contemporary German imperial drives. German landlords ran to re-establish the state of old Roman God-Caesar, getting into position against Roman pope, having the same ambitions those days.

Germans begin the occupation of the lands to East under the cover of converting to Christianity suppressing for example Czechians and Moravians for many centuries. These circumstances forced Vajk to cut the edge of legitimity of German occupation of Hungary and made the strategic decision by the Roman Catholic church. That was however not too heavy for him personally, growing up after it's standards. Nevertheless the following centuries proved that Hungarians should not fear of Germans being able to repulse all German tries of occupation by excellent skills of war. Consider the origin of name of Vértes Mountains in Hungary! This also suggests to reconsider the evaluation of the battle of Augsburg in 955 CE. If it would be the final victory over Hungarians, than why did they not take the chance to continue the war until the final target, occupation of whole Hungary?

In spite of any logical conclusion, this is not the time of offering Hungary to Saint Mary.

Lets take a deeper look into the available sources.

The first portray of Stephen of the Illustrated Chronicle shows a strong, ambitious, self confident young man. This young man started to strengthen his power eliminating external and internal rivals, as part of his plan of many huge changes, after getting the power of ruling the country.

It was Vajk, renamed István, that became a fanatic servant of the Roman church and openly violated the blood covenant of his ancestors. He married a German princess and aimed at making of Hungarians a Germanic people. His reign began with his first bloody action, murdering the legitimate heir to the throne according to the law established by the Blood Covenant, by which it was the eldest male within the ruling house the one having the right to succeed the sovereign. We cannot know with certainty who Koppány was, apparently he was not Géza's brother, maybe he was Taksony's grandson through another line (namely, Géza's nephew and Vajk's cousin). In any case, as the accounts were written by Vajk's chroniclers, they contain purposely falsified information and genealogies, omissions and distortions in order to legalize István as the king of Hungary. Many documents were destroyed, as the rovás runic writing was banned and replaced by Latin characters (which are not suitable for Hungarian language; many diacritics and composed letters had to be added in order to represent the phonemes, while rovás had one character for each sound). Even the Bibles already written in rovás were burnt!

Among the laws of Vajk (Stephen I.) stands:
"The old Hungarian characters and carvings, the pagan writing from right to left should be end, and replaced by Latin characters... the documents and carvings given in must be destroyed with fire and sword, to end remembering and longing for the old pagan religion".

"Documents" and prayer books "written in pagan writing" are evidences that old Hungarian writing was not used to carve only, but also to write.  This writing was used not to document worldly thins only, that is proved by early Medieval Armenian chronicles mentioning that Bible was translated to Hungarian with rovás during their stay in the Caucasian area. Other evidence is the records of canonization of Margit of House of Árpád in Vatican, mentioning a rovás written Bible in the grave of Margit. (Just a remark here: she is the only official saint, whose canonization took more centuries (1276-1943)! The process in case of other Western ladies took far less time.)

King István ("the saint") had done away with Hungarian culture and history in the name of Germanization, and for this bravery he has been sanctified by Rome. He devoted himself to obliterate the ancient Hungarian religion in the same way as the "church fathers" erased any trace of Judaism from the original Christian belief. We cannot know even if Koppány was a supporter of the old religion or if he opposed Christianity, as Vajk did not only fight against him, but also moved war against Catholic princes: Ajtony of Marosvár and Gyula of Transylvania, his uncle. However, István claimed his wars to be in defence of Christianity, and he soon learnt to apply the methods of annihilation of any religious idea different from the Roman church that were practised in Catholic Europe.

Western attitude to life including religious concepts refuse aliens. Everything different to their own have to be destroyed and changed to an acceptable shape. This is the root of todays western nationalist-fascist movements. This motion and the pressure to satisfy Rome revoked the justification of any kind of cultures of alien, this way „pagan” origin.

This is exactly the next picture of István in the Illustrated Chronicle showing a satisfied ruler.

His rule does not seem to have been peaceful: by the end of his reign, Vászoly, who was another of his relatives, rebelled against him. Vajk the murderer (István "the saint") made him to be blinded and tortured, and then executed. There is no record of atrocities similar to those committed by István "the saint" in the previous history of Hungarians ‒ surely not by Attila "the Scourge". István had not any living son to succeed him to the throne of Hungary, as his only son died shortly before Vajk could pass the rule to him. The whole House of Arpad was to die out because of handling of family affairs by "saint" Stephen, killing, unabling or persecuting his relatives. It was to be that after a brief period of disputed succession, the house of Árpád was restored when András, the elder son of Vászoly persecuted by István, that was exiled in the Kievan Rus', became the king of Hungary, setting up the House of Arpad again, but the branch of István coluld not play any role in the Hungarian history.

The third  picture shows an astonishing change. The old king seems to be more affraid and broken than a calm, wise old man. The answer is in the next picture.

The fourth picture shows the graving of Prince Emericus. Old István, who put all hsi trust into his only son gazes scared how his son is taken into coffin right before some days of his enthronement. The picture also shows the line of events. Grim faced soldiers of the court most probably ride and break into the castle of Vászoly. The prove of István attack against Vásoly and not vica versa as officially told is the broken castle gate of Vászoly in upper right third of the picture. Than Vászoly was trussed up and blinded, that is followed by graving of Prince Emericus.István was catched up by his sins. His only descendant was died, that was caused definitelly not by a boar as it is mentioned in only one German source. Any other source do not tell anything of the reason of his death or tells he was murdered. Reticency of sources suggests that the reason was clear for all. Also the picture of Illustrated Chroncile suggests that the death of the Prince was not by accident. Gizella stands apathetically next to István taking his hands to his mouth in scare, while one of the servants drawn in the bottom right glances to an other one with the face as everything would happen according to a plan! Maybe István was ot aware of the planned murdering.

This event became the root of a very serious problem, as the existence of House of Árpád was endangered in the time of Vajk already, murdering, making unable to rule or casting his rivals out the country. Having no other chance offered Stephen the country to the defence of Saint Mary, to the Great Mother of Hungarians better to say.

There was a goddess clear for all Hungarians Saint Mary, Babba Maria, Emese, Eneth, Bau who perfectly fit to the concept of Saint Mary of christian Europe. This goddess is goddess Bau of Sumerian religion, living along as Dingir Inanna. Her shape appears in the Hungarian folktale of Tündér Ilona. Her name means „Godly Petition”. She is the One this way to whom we cry telling: „Great Woman of Hungatrians petition for us!”

The religious beliefs of Hungarians returning into Carpathian Basin was based on the One God, the Creator of Universe. Jesus and his salvation was well known far before coming into the Carpathian Basin.

Istvan could make is offer acceptable for West by the shape of Saint Mary, as mother of Christ Jesus, while the nation could accept this offering in the shape of Babba Maria as to the Great Woman of Hungarians. The concept of both is actually the same. The first option is more accpetable considering his education, while the possible scared desire to return to the tradition of olds makes the second option considerable.

This is how István the selfish, ambitious, pushy young completing his selfish wishes (his arpad-striped garment) under the flag and cover of christianity (the symbol of double cross on the flag and the shield) turned into satisfied ruler (his purple garment on the throne), whose acts stroke back (picture of death of Prince Emericus). The old man breaks and converts under the pressure (now double cross appears not on his flag and shield, but on his garment), recognizing his sins and offering the country, the simple playground of reaching his selfish goals, to Saint Mary in full agreement of his wife, having no able, legal successor for the nation. This was paid by hathred of the nation, as he was not a popular king among contemporary subjects, in spite of any romantic ideas of the 19th century.
Nevertheless, since that time onwards the ancient cultural heritage had been undergoing an irreversible process of Germanization and the secret of the origins had been perhaps lost forever with the destruction of the documents written in rovás alphabet.

This is also a warning to all leaders of the Hungarian nation.

Content    M@il