A special exhibition titled The History of Healing opened in the Archbishop's Library of Kalocsa on March 22. The participants of the opening were greeted by Archbishop Balázs Bábel, and then the library manager Zita Grócz presented the material of the temporary exhibition compiled from the library's treasures.
In his greeting, the chief pastor said that the history of healing is as old as man. As long as man has lived on earth, there has been disease and there has been healing. His written memories go back 6-7 thousand years. Doctors, priests, magicians wanted to heal people. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the Persians all created a well-known history of healing, but for us the history of Christian healing is primary. Of course, we also appreciate healers from other world religions and philosophies. Moreover, Christianity and monasticism preserved these sciences for the most part. Christian healing goes back to Jesus, the archbishop declared.
In the pages of the Gospel, we often meet Jesus the healer. Christian healing emerged from the merciful love that emanates from it.
From the very beginning, the deacons not only played a charitable role, but also visited the sick. The sanctity of the sick is also about attention to the sick. The Church dealt with healing and care in an organized way from the beginning. One of the canons of the Council of Nicaea stipulates that every episcopal seat should have a healing place. The Archbishop of Kalocsa himself established a hospital early on in both of his centers - Kalocsán and Bács. A plaque announces the founding of the hospital by Csák Ugrin, the hospital in Kalocsa was personally founded by the archbishop and named after the Holy Cross.
The chief pastor remembered St. Benedict, who in his rule had provisions for the care and healing of the sick at that time.
The patient was received as a guest, hospes also means this.
The unified sign of the hospital also comes from this word. The archbishop recalled that a year ago he gave a presentation at the Museum of Medical History, where he explained the history of Christian healing. Throughout the history of the Church, it has freed people to care for the sick. The Church had and still has 31 organizations that deal with the sick.
Selected from the library's rich medical and natural science collections, the exhibition presents the milestones in the history of healing, its revolutionary results, and the century-long development of the science of medicine from antiquity to the 19th century. Numerous rarities from the history of books and medicine, spectacular engravings, pictures and documents are lined up in the display cases, offering the visitor a chronological overview.
You can read more interesting facts about the exhibition in Magyar Kurír .
