The State Secretary for National Policy, who died on October 17, was 57 years old.
The State Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office responsible for national policy, the Fidesz member of parliament of the 2nd electoral district of Tolna county, was escorted to the evangelical cemetery in Bonyhád by hundreds of people.
At the funeral, Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén said, János Árpád Potápi
"his name is inscribed in the history of national politics and thus of the Hungarian nation".
He was Hungarian and Christian, the national policy we represent is not only Hungarian, but also Christian, he added.
Because
"every nation is a thought of God, which is unique and unrepeatable, nothing can give the richness of value that (...) Hungarianness, only Hungarians"
he said.
He explained: as Hungarians, our primary duty towards universal humanity is to preserve, develop and show off our Hungarianness.
"Árpád represented this Christian national idea, respecting all nations and the mission to preserve Hungarianness"
he declared.
He described the deceased politician as having modesty as his special character, he had no hubris, and he preferred to take a step back in national politics as well. He testified that
"we are the frame and the canvas, the Hungarian communities paint the picture".
Rest in peace, but help us from the other side in a Székely manner - concluded Zsolt Semjén.
Among others, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, László Kövér, President of the Parliament, Gergely Gulyás, Minister in charge of the Prime Minister's Office, János Áder and Katalin Novák, former President of the Republic, Kelemen Hunor, President of the Hungarian Democratic Association in Romania, among others, said goodbye to the late Secretary of State.
The politician was buried according to Roman Catholic rites, and the funeral mass was said by Pécs County Bishop László Felföldi in the Church of the Immaculate Conception. In his farewell speech at the funeral, the bishop said that János Árpád Potápi not only knew, but also served the Hungarians of the Carpathian Basin and our common national goals.
János Árpád Potápi was born on March 28, 1967 in Bonyhád. In 1991, he obtained a primary school teacher's certificate at the Gyula Juhász Teacher Training College in Szeged, majoring in Hungarian language and literary history, and between 1991 and 1994, he graduated in history at Eötvös Loránd University. Between 1991-1993 he was a teacher at an elementary school in Szeged, and between 1993-1998 at the Sándor Petőfi Evangelical High School and College in Bonyhád.
He joined political life in 1993, and was the campaign manager of Fidesz in Bonyhád in the 1994 parliamentary elections. Between 1998-2007, he was the deputy chairman of Fidesz Tolna County, and since 2007, he was its chairman. From 1998 to 2011, he was the president of the National Association of Bukovina Székelys, between 2004 and 2014, he was the president of the association formed by the municipalities of the Völgy region, and from 2002 to 2014, he was the mayor of Bonyhád.
Since 1998, he has been a Member of Parliament with an individual mandate, and in 2022 he won a mandate as a Member of Parliament for the seventh time. Between 2011 and 2014, he was one of the deputy faction leaders of Fidesz, also between 2011 and 2014 he was the chairman of the National Cohesion Committee of the Parliament, and since 2014 he was the State Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office responsible for national policy.
MTI
Featured image: Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén delivers a speech at the funeral of János Árpád Potápi at the Bonyhád Lutheran cemetery on October 24, 2024. The State Secretary of the Prime Minister's Office responsible for national policy, a member of the Fidesz National Assembly, died on October 17 at the age of 57. MTI/Sándor Ujvári
