Székesfehérvár preserves a huge piece of our common history - emphasized the minister in charge of the Prime Minister's Office on Friday, when he opened the Coronation Basilica National Memorial Visitor Center, which was built with nearly four billion forints as part of the Árpád House program.

Gergely Gulyás pointed out that the piece preserved by the city "is a bit of an Atlantis treasure, it needs to be dug out from under the floodwaters of the Ottoman conquest and the sediments of the ages that followed". He believed that Székesfehérvár was worthy of this mission, making serious efforts to ensure that the specialists could carry out research continuously, and also to be able to present in a dignified manner everything that science "can fish out of the deep well of the past".

The minister emphasized that the new visitor center presents the history of the Cathedral of Our Lady, which is one of the most important nodes in Hungarian history:

"here stood the throne of the country, here our kings were crowned, in the presence of the crown symbolizing the country and the nation as a whole, they swore to their life-or-death service, here our kings were buried after their earthly career, so that they could also walk for our heritage in the heavenly homeland".

Gergely Gulyás emphasized that the quarry-visitor center-exhibition space not only preserves the legacy of the Árpád House in a dignified way, but also shows what the researchers have achieved with the work of recent years.

Thanks to the tools of modern museum pedagogy, you can feel what the coronation basilica was like and what role it played in shaping our "common past", he added.

The minister stated:

we must continue to work so that the Cathedral of Our Lady can "tell its secrets" and that the thousand-year anniversary of the death of King St. Stephen, in 2038, can be celebrated in a dignified manner by the city and the country, the nation and the entire Christian world.

Mayor András Cser-Palkovics (Fidesz) spoke about how they were able to save several values ​​at the same time, since on the one hand the visitor center was created in the former Republic cinema building, and on the other hand the thousand-year-old stones and stone carvings can be preserved in a dignified manner and in a safe place in the future.

The city manager noted that the national memorial site in Székesfehérvár is now a ruinous area, and it is not possible to enter the church, look around, and pray. However, by visiting the visitor center, anyone can get spiritual and spiritual content, knowledge and information about how, when they enter the area of ​​the coronation basilica, they can feel why it is called the cradle of the country, he added.

Krisztián Pokrovenszki, the general director of the Szent István Király Museum, emphasized that

the institution was enriched not only with a new exhibition space and visitor center, but also with a research base and warehouse, which is exemplary in every respect.

He pointed out that the exhibited stones are not just carvings from the Middle Ages, they were components of the basilica founded by Saint Stephen a thousand years ago, and thus embody everything that means Hungarianness, which is why the permanent exhibition was named Solium Regni - Throne of the Country.

According to the press material, the largest development of the Árpád House program, which was dreamed up in 2013 at the government seat in Székesfehérvár, has been realized. On the 400 square meter ground floor of the building, you can enter the exhibition space through a reconstructed gate symbolizing the entrance to the former coronation basilica.

The 350-square-meter basement floor houses the precious stone materials, and the second floor houses a museum pedagogy office, as well as an exhibition showing the research history of the rectory and the basilica.

MTI

Front page image: The permanent exhibition entitled Solium regni – The throne of the country at the Coronation Basilica National Memorial Visitor Center in Székesfehérvár on the day of the institution's opening, November 17, 2023.
MTI/Tamás Vasvári