Hungary is renowned the world over for family-friendly social policy — a topic that’s attracting ever more international attention, especially in the United States. 

What’s less known is that the history of the Hungarian nation begins with the story of a family with a unique call. King St. Stephen, Blessed Queen Gisela, and their son, Crown Prince St. Emeric, model the great things that a family can accomplish when they respond generously to God’s call. Today’s day and age needs more holy families — a need that Pope St. John Paul II keenly observed and made part of his pontificate. He commended the Hungarian Holy Family to the modern world, and their story continues to echo with hope for Hungary and for all nations engaged in the important work of building thriving family culture.  

In a letter sent to mark Hungary’s national millennial celebration in 2001, John Paul II recounted the story of King St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary and the founder of the Hungarian nation. The Holy Father wrote that Stephen was a man dedicated to prayer, “a man of extraordinary prudence, endowed with exceptional ability and great wisdom,” who led his people well. Because he wanted Hungary to be part of Christian Europe, Stephen asked the Pope for official recognition of his kingship. In response, Pope Sylvester II sent Stephen the “Holy Crown” — a relic that’s kept in the Hungarian Parliament to this day. Stephen was crowned on Christmas Day in the year 1000, and as John Paul II wrote, he “did not accept the crown as an honor, but a service.” 

Christian King

Part of the service King Stephen undertook was Christianizing his people, a mission that flowed from his relationship with Christ. John Paul II echoed the story of Stephen’s kingship: that he governed while “always presenting himself as though he were before the tribunal of Christ, whom he contemplated with the eyes of his heart.” While ruling his kingdom, Stephen dedicated himself to the education of his son, Emeric, and wrote a series of letters to form him in the way of Christian kingship. Stephen also sought out the holy bishop St. Gellert to be his son’s tutor, and he strove to “train his son for life so as to make him worthy, both in knowledge and in conduct, to govern the kingdom.” 

Marian Devotion

During his reign, Stephen saw a vision of Mary; and in the vision, he knelt at her feet and offered her the Holy Crown. Depictions of this vision grace most churches in Hungary, including the Basilica of St. Stephen in Budapest, where a painting depicting Stephen at Our Lady’s feet stands above the reliquary containing Stephen’s right arm — the “Holy Dexter.” The Hungarian Chapel in America’s largest Catholic church, the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., also features an award-winning bas-relief depicting the same scene. Stephen’s devotion to Our Lady predated most of the pious devotions to Mary that Catholics in the modern world know, including the Miraculous Medal, the Brown Scapular, the Rosary, Lourdes and Fatima. Yet Stephen gave his people a natural love for the “Great Lady of the Hungarians,” a love that John Paul II fondly remarked on and reflected in his own papal motto: Totus Tuus Maria (“Totally Yours Mary”). 

Holy Marriage

John Paul II rightly commended Stephen in the context of his family — “his blessed wife, Gisela, and his holy son, Emeric” — remarking that these “splendid lights of Christianity continue to spur us on to take the right path, following the signs of Christ.” Blessed Gisela’s marriage to Stephen was marked by mutual affection. The Bavarian princess-turned-queen of Hungary traveled across her kingdom helping her husband in the work of Christianization. She founded convents and churches, providing them with vestments that she made herself. Legend has it that she also embroidered part of the coronation robe that Stephen wore upon his accession to the throne — another relic that the Hungarians preserve with pious care at the National Museum.

A town in Hungary called Veszprém — “City of Queens” — recounts the following story: Once, when Stephen was on campaign against the pagans, Gisela remained behind praying for her husband. Pagan fighters surrounded Veszprém and made Stephen’s way back to the city precarious. Hearing her husband returning, Gisela ran out of the church where she was praying, holding a bright crucifix. She waved the cross and Stephen navigated towards it, managing to escape capture and to return home safely. He built a church over the spot where Gisela had stood waving the cross, and Gisela was eventually buried there, now the Gisela Chapel of St. Michael’s Cathedral. 

Good Son

Like his saintly parents, St. Emeric’s life was marked by a desire for holiness. He bears the title the “Lily of Hungary,” and he’s frequently depicted holding the lily of purity. In a sermon given on St. Emeric’s feast day in 1972, the great Hungarian primate József Cardinal Mindszenty described the young man’s exemplary piety: At night, Emeric kept two candles burning in his room just as the candles burn on the altar; and at night, by the light of those two candles, he would rise and pray the psalter. Fifty years after his untimely death — he was killed by a boar while hunting at age 24 — Emeric was canonized alongside his father, St. Stephen, and his tutor, St. Gellert, in 1083, by Pope St. Gregory VII. Upon his son’s premature death, Stephen’s grief shed light on his son’s holiness: “By God’s secret decision death took him, so that wickedness would not change his soul and false imaginations would not deceive his mind.” 

John Paul II rightly praised Stephen, Gisela and Emeric and commended them to the modern world. Their lives bore great fruit and produced “such virtue in the subsequent generations as to give rise to the just claim that the house of Árpád has given the Church countless saints and blesseds.” Sts. Ladislaus, Margaret and Elizabeth all trace their lineage to St. Stephen’s family line. This rich legacy suggests that the life of a thriving Church and the infrastructure for thriving family culture start at home.

A blessing for Hungary, love for the Hungarian Holy Family reverberates loudly in their culture to this day. For instance: In 1996, descendants of Hungarian sculptor Jenő Bory greeted John Paul II on the occasion of his second pastoral visit to Hungary with the replica of a statue that Bory made depicting Stephen, Gisela and Emeric in a pose reminiscent of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The Pope responded to their gift with joy, and the sculptor’s family retained the letter, signed by the Holy Father, with great pride. In that letter, John Paul II wrote — in Hungarian in his own hand — “Krisztus a mi reménységünk” (“Christ is our hope”). Fittingly, when John Paul II visited the Basilica of Esztergom, he celebrated Mass over the relics of the Hungarian Holy Family, since relics of Stephen, Gisela and Emeric rest together in the basilica’s altar stone. 

Veneration for the saints of holy family life shores up the foundation of truly family-friendly culture. Pro-family policies are effective only if they are paired with a love for family life so that a nation’s citizenry can grow ever closer to Nazareth. The time is coming for a resurgence of love and respect for the family, and governments that desire to articulate a truly pro-family way forward should look to Hungary for inspiration. By the same token, to build a truly thriving family culture, nations should look to the Holy Family of Nazareth, to John Paul II, and to the Hungarian Holy Family for their efficacious intervention and intercession. 

Evelyn Whitehead, a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville and Ave Maria Law School, is currently a fellow in the Budapest Fellowship Program. Her research areas are culture, the human person, and life and family policy.  You can read her reflections on her substack, “With Love From Hungary,” here.