Blazon of arms Personal: Mindszenty or Pehm
Shield: Or on a bend vert three roses Argent barbed and seeded Or
Blazon of arms: Diocesan arms, Veszprern
Shield: Azure, standing on a pavement Argent masoned Sable in base Our Lady Argent vested in an overmantle and veil Sable enhaloed Or holding in her dexter hand a lily proper and in her sinister a closed book bendsinisterwise Or fore-edged Gules; and before her dexter foot an escutcheon Gules charged of a triple mount in base Vert and above it a cross of two traverses Argent the escutcheon ensigned of a coronet of fleurs de lis Or; to the sinister side of Our Lady a tall attenuated chi-rho symbol Or
SOURCES, NOTES & CREDITS: The illustration for background and the text are adapted from the Wikipedia article. We give thanks to John Gaylor for the blazons.
Cardinal József Mindszenty (9 March 1892 – 6 May 1975) was a Hungarian cardinal of the Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Esztergom and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from 1945 to 1973. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, for five decades “he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary”
During World War II, Mindszenty was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party. After the war, he opposed communism and communist persecution in his country. As a result, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial that generated worldwide condemnation, including a United Nations resolution.
After eight years in prison, Mindszenty was freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and granted political asylum by the United States embassy in Budapest. He lived there for the next fifteen years. He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971, and died in exile in 1975 in Vienna, Austria.
His cause for sainthood was opened in 1993 and Pope Francis declared him Venerable in 2019.
The artwork is an interpretation of John Hamilton Gaylor.
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