The Christ of Limpias and the Passion of Hungary

Abstract

The residence of the exiled royal family of Hungary in the Basque village of Lekeitio sharpened the interest of monarchist Hungarians in the apparitions of the Christ of Limpias nearby in Cantabria, whose movements they interpreted as sympathetic suffering for Communist terror of 1919 and the dismemberment of the nation by the Allied powers in the Treaty of Trianon. The Passion and Crucifixion of Hungary became the dominant nationalist metaphor in the interwar years.

Keywords:

• Roman Catholicism
• Nationalism
• Habsburgs
• Apparitions
• Spain
• Hungary

Acknowledgements

This is a revised and expanded version of papers published as “El Cristo de Limpias et la pasión de Hungría” Publicaciones del Instituto de Etnografía y Folklore “Hoyos Sainz” (Centro de Estudios Montañeses, Santander) 18 (2002–2003): 113–140 and “A limpiasi csodás feszület és Magyarország kálváriája”, Aetas, 18 (2003/3–4), 137–154. William Christian thanks Gábor Klaniczay for inviting him to the Collegium Budapest in February and March 2002, where the authors worked together, and for making numerous calls to Sopron and elsewhere in Hungary. He also thanks Rita Horváth and Emese Szeliánszky for their translations, Adrienne Dömötör for her coaching in Hungarian, and Enrico Sturani for the 1925 Hungarian Limpias lottery image. He is grateful to Ander Manterola, Miel Elustondo and, in Lekeitio, Benito Ansola and Begoña Achurra. The authors thank the Collegium librarians Katalin Dese[otilde] and Hédi Erd[otilde]s, and, at the National Széchényi Library, the reference librarian Valéria Szeli and the small prints collection librarian Zsófia Borsa. We salute with pleasure Sándor Dalmadi, Gyula Jakab and other members of the Budapest Philatelic Society for finding us religious–political postcards from the interwar period, and thank Ildikó Kristóf, Bertalan Pusztai, Gábor Barna, Lisa Godson, Galia Valtchinova and Anne‐Marie Losonczy for suggestions. Finally we thank an exceptional witness to these events, Otto von Habsburg, for his time and recollections.

Notes

[1] Christian (1992, 2002).

[2] Von Kleist (1922; 179). The passage in German is in the first and all subsequent editions: von Kleist (1920: 126). The French edition published in 1921 in Colmar suppressed the references to Germany, but retained the idea of Limpias as a site of postwar reconciliation: “L’Espagne n’a pas été souillée du sang versé pendant cette guerre, Nous devons être, par conséquent, tout disposés à accepter de ses mains les bénédictions du Sauveur. Ces bénédictions seronts seules capables de réconcilier entre eux les enfants d’une même Eglise, et c’est seulement ainsi que la paix faite par les hommes sera efficace et durable.”

[3] For wartime imagery in general, Winter (1995).

[4] János Tóth in Paulovits (1926: 183). For national defeat in general, (Schivelbusch 2004).

[5] Sinkó (1994); Zeidler (2001a).

[6] See for example Ormos (1990); Romsics (2002); Romsics (2000).

[7] Reviczky (1920: 16); Nihil obstat, 17 December 1920; Vendel (1921: 48) [Prologue signed 27 November 1920].

[8] Diario Montañés [Santander] (12‐IX‐1922: 2, 23‐VI‐1923: 1).

[9] Pogány (1925: 79).

[10] Diario Montañés (9‐IV‐1922: 2).

[11] For Zita in Lekeitio, see de Ocamica (1979) and the collection of the late Rufo de Achurra Arrieta, Lekeitio. We also consulted Baier and Demmerle (2003); Brook‐Shepherd (1991); Harding (1939); Pérez‐Maura (1997); and Praschl‐Bichler (1996).

[12] Diario Montañés (2‐VIII‐1923: 1). Indeed, the idea of Zita in Limpias was so apt that it seems to have preceded the real thing. The Schweizerisches Katholisches Sonntagsblatt (2‐II‐1922: 39), ever enthusiastic about the Limpias visions, reported a (highly unlikely) excursion of Zita to the shrine from Madrid with the Spanish royal family in late January 1922, when she was on her way back to Madeira from Zurich, where her son Robert had an operation. And on 29 April 1922, while the recently widowed Zita and her children were still on Madeira, the rumour circulated that she was in Limpias as a pilgrim, (Diario Montañés [3‐V‐1922 : 1–2]).

[13] Personal communication, P. Benito Ansola, Lekeitio, 14 November 2002; photographs in the Rufo de Achurra collection show her and her children in Holy Week, Corpus Christi, and even Arbor Day processions. Zita died in 1989 at the age of 97; her life‐long efforts were largely responsible for the beatification of her husband Charles on 3 October 2004.

[14] Paulovits (1926: 180–181) citing János Tóth; this would be before 1926.

[15] For Gudenus (1869–1953), who was at Limpias in September 1921, Ritz (1925); Gudenus and wife were present on 25 August 1922 when Queen Victoria visited Zita and family in Lekeitio (Noticiero Bilbaino [26‐X‐1922]); they later accompanied Zita and her children to Limpias. Otto awarded him the Golden Fleece in 1932. Pio de Saboya was at Limpias in July 1919 (Imparcial (Madrid) [5‐VIII‐1919: 3]) and visited Zita with the Queen mother María Cristina on 13 October 1922 (Noticiero Bilbaino [14‐X‐1922]).

[16] Diario Montañés (1‐VIII‐1919); the Queen returned two weeks later, Diario Montañés (13‐VIII‐1919).

[17] El Debate (Madrid) (31‐VII‐1920: 2); Diario Montañés (31‐VII‐1920: 2); El Debate (11‐VIII‐1920: 3).

[18] Diario Montañés (1‐VIII‐1921: 2, 31‐VIII‐1921: 2, 14‐VII‐1922:1, 26‐VII‐1922:1). Prince Felipe of Hohenlohe, a Benedictine, visited Limpias in the spring of 1921, Diario Montañés (22‐X‐1921: 1).

[19] Diario Montañés (2‐II‐1923: 2, 2‐VIII‐1923: 1, 12‐IX‐1923: 1, 24‐XI‐1923: 1).

[20] Paulovits (1926: 180): “The Queen said several time to the Hungarians who went to pay their respects to her that she went four times to Limpias and is very happy to have seen the sufferings of Christ.” Her son Otto, however, thinks it unlikely she saw the Christ move at Limpias: “I think she would have told me.” (personal communication, Pöcking, 4 October 2005).

[21] Another visit is mentioned in Diario Montañés (11‐VII‐1925). Interest on the part of our chief source, Diario Montañés, in the few remaining pilgrimages to Limpias declined sharply with the illness and death of José María Aguirre Gutiérrez in 1926, and there was no longer detailed reporting. Otto von Habsburg’s recollections in letter to W.A.Christian, Pöcking, 13 July 2005.

[22] Diario Montañés (15‐XII‐1923: 2). At Limpias it was thought that her subsequent recovery increased Hungarian interest in the shrine.

[23] Pogány (1925: 79–105); trip document is pp. 84–86, the vision testimonies 91–97.

[24] We have been unable to locate the issues of his magazine, Lourdes képes havi folyóirat, for the 1920s, so we do not know when his Limpias excursions began. The first may have been that of May 1924.

[25] Paulovits (1925: 241).

[26] Paulovits (1925: 182).

[27] Paulovits (1925: 189). Though one would not know it from Hungarian pilgrim accounts, the children also had Austrian and English tutors. Zita maintained an extensive coded correspondence with adherents in Austria (Brook‐Shepherd [1991: 223ff.). In the years 1923–1926 (and possibly later) there were also ex‐empire‐wide pilgrimages to Limpias, with many military officers, which included Czechs, Austrians and Yugoslavs, as well as Hungarians (Diario Montañés [12‐VIII‐1923: 4, 20‐V‐1925: 4, 17‐VII‐1926: 4, 8‐IX‐1926: 4]). At least twice, Austrian bishops accompanied Zita to Limpias, and the Marian Lourdes Committee of Vienna organized two side‐trips from Lourdes to Limpias every year from 1923 until at least 1930. Some of these groups also stopped at Lekeitio; see, for instance, Kleinschrod (1929: 731). In the years 1923–1931, 230 out of 2700 pilgrims on the semi‐annual Austrian trips to Limpias reported visions; see Benediktus‐Bote (Innsbruck), passim 1930–1938. Otto von Habsburg (Pöcking, 4 October 2005) thinks it likely that some pilgrims were members of prayer circles for the Emperor Charles, the Gebetsliga.

[28] Paulovits (1925: 187–188).

[29] Paulovits(1925: 190–191).

[30] Tóth (1928).

[31] Tóth (1930: 166–170). This would have been one of Tóth’s last contacts with Zita; see Lourdes 20:2 (1935), 13.

[32] We are grateful to Bertalan Pusztai for this information.

[33] Pfeifer [Pfeiffer] (1931: 54).

[34] Pfeifer [Pfeiffer] (1931: 1).

[35] Pfeifer [Pfeiffer] (1931: 11).

[36] Pfeifer [Pfeiffer] (1931: 27). Joseph (briefly governor of Hungary in 1919) and his wife Augusta (grand‐daughter of emperor Franz Joseph), their son, Joseph Franz, and daughter‐in‐law, Anna, and archduchess Gabrielle from another branch of the family. Key members of the Committee included the Archduke Joseph and Fr. István Zadravecz, chaplain in Horthy’s counterrevolutionary army in 1919 and bishop from 1920 on.

[37] Pfeifer [Pfeiffer] (1931: 36).

[38] Pfeifer [Pfeiffer] (1931: 32).

[39] Pfeifer [Pfeiffer] (1931: 44–47). The artists Grandtner and Ramold took two years to complete the image, working from photographs given to Pfeiffer in Limpias.

[40] He was Gyula Besnyő, former parish priest of the village of Soltvadkert (Török et al. [1996: 33]). The order’s monastery at Czestohowa was the spiritual centre of Polish Catholicism.

[41] Török et al. (1996: 53). In 1951, the Communist regime confiscated the grotto–church and the cloister and dissolved the order. The church furnishings, including the Limpias crucifix, were destroyed, and the grotto walled shut until the end of the 1980s. Today, the church has been restored, the order has returned and a crucifix, sculpted by a Hungarian artist, modelled on and still called the Christ of Limpias, hangs over the main altar. Csizmadia (undated: 51–64).

[42] Christian (1992: 89).

[43] Éljen + Jézus! Nézd a töviskoronát, kapsz érte égi koronát! A mi Urunk Jézus Krisztus szent sebeinek vagy irgalmasságának olvasója. various ed. Budapest: Konstantin Missziós Iroda Budafok, Ezredes‐utca 8 [1928–1931] Az Úr Jézus Szt. Sebeinek Társulata; Budapest I. Városmajor utca 10 [1934]. pamphlets in the National Széchényi Library small prints collection.

[44] Marie Marthe Chambon (1844–1907) was a Visitandine nun in Grenoble. Although her revelations about the devotion of the Holy Wounds occurred in 1867, only in 1923 did her order start promoting the devotion. The Visitation house in Santander issued a Spanish translation of a French booklet about Chambon’s revelations in 1924, noting its resonance with the Limpias visions: Las Hermanas de la Visitación de Santa María, La Hermana María Marta Chambon de la Visitación de Santa María de Chambéry y Las Santas Llagas de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo. Santander: Monasterio de la Visitación, Aldus, S. A. Artes Gráficas, 1924. The reference to Limpias is on p. 10. Similarly, from 1929 on the Limpias devotion fed into, and upon, devotion to the stigmatic Therese Neumann.

[45] In the Széchényi small prints collection: Death cards 1936, communion card 1930, issue of Missziós Propaganda Iratka 1931. Prayer book, unlabelled frontispiece, Énekkönyv. Egyházi imák és énekek gyűjteménye. Esztergom: Szomor Béla és Rothnágel Sándor, 1925.

[46] Cover of Lourdes September and October 1936 and April 1937; Élet cover March 7, 1937.

[47] For St. Stephen as a symbol in the interwar period, Hann (1990).

[48] For notions of “haza” and “orzágtest,” see Losonczy and Zempleni (1991).

[49] One example among many: the editorial in Csallóközi Lapok, 38 (6‐XI‐1938: 1), entitled “Hungarian Resurrection.” Similarly, for Ireland in 1916, Gilley (1987) (“The identification of Ireland and the Irish people with Jesus, as the suffering Christ of the nations martyred by the British, runs deep through nineteenth‐century Irish Catholic culture” p. 479.)

[50] “The Eucharist rewarded our people … No one can outdo the Lord in generosity! He saw this wound hurt us the most, and repaid us by healing it,” Lourdes, 1939/1, 23–25.

[51] Most of the postcards we refer to are in the collection of the authors; some of this imagery can be seen in Zeidler (2001b: 78–87), and on Irredentist websites.

[52] For the 1940 events, Boros (1943: 47, 93). On the Pentecost gathering at Csíksomlyó, which became enormously popular after 1990, see the contribution of Anne‐Marie Losonczy in this issue, and Tánczos (1996). As an early example of the symbolic weight of the Székely lands in the Hungarian nationalist imagination, see Orbán (1868, vol. 1:2): “This region is the Lacedemon of our homeland; it has the beauty of Arcadia and its glorious people are adorned with the virtues of Sparta. It is the citadel and the giant fortress of this homeland …”

[53] Freedberg (1989). We are indebted here also to the work, published and unpublished, on international symbols of John MacAloon.

[54] Christian (1992: 62); de la Cueva (2001).