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In memory of the founding of the one thousand year old Pannonhalma
by
TIBOR BERTA
The passing ticket into the 3rd. millennium is the clarification of our origins which must be done with an almost apocalyptic force at the end of the 2nd millennium. Hungary's past five-hundred years was her Phoenix epoch and at its end life renews and like the phoenix which consumes itself,
will fly up resurrected from its nest.
Tradition holds that the Phoenix is resurrected on the third day. Christian beliefs hold this true of Christ's resurrection. It is important for us to know when, and on what route the Christian doctrines first arrived in Hungary prior to the establishment of the Hungarian Christian Kingdom in the year 1,000 AD. The first church in Hungary was Pannonhalma (996) and the picture of the founding letter's signet seal attempts to answer this question. In the Hungarian popular language the word for signet-seal (pecsét) means the seal and the object bearing the picture of the seal; the study of these attained a scientific status called sphragistics, or sigillography. According to today's standards the seal has three functions:
Christianization of Hungary was an important antecedent to the establishment of statehood. Looking back from a thousand years, it seems that the Byzantine missionaries' role was not significant in the entirety of the country. What is significant is the priority of Christianization of Sankt Gallen, founded by the Celtic Irish.
The Hungarian king Géza's delegation approached Otto I. in August of 972 in Sankt Gallen to inform Otto I of the willingness to convert to Catholicism and asked for missionaries to be sent to Hungary. According to the Book of the Dead of Sankt Gallen, Bruno, the bishop of Sankt Gallen baptized the king of the Hungarians, and in the baptism king Géza received the name István. Bruno, residing in Hungary, baptized five-thousand noblemen and many commoners of Hungary in the following two years.
*Bruno's superior was the archbishop of Mainz. The church of Mainz was dedicated to St. Martin of Tour, whose relics were kept there. So it becomes understandable that the cult of St. Martin was already known during the time of King Géza in Hungary and it was no accident that the church of Pannonhalma was built upon the mount of St. Martin. Sulpicius Severus mentions in his biography in 401 AD that Sabaria in Pannonia was the birthplace of St. Martin, and in the middle ages this name was used secondarily to refer to Pannonhalma** (or rather the spring of this place). The spread of the cult of St. Martin was helped by the fact that the saint was of Pannonian origin and so the first Hungarian bishop belonged under St. Martin.
The bishop of Tour sent church-objects and textiles at the request of Otto I to the Christian king with whom he had an allegiance. These came partly from the emperor's treasury, partly from the bishop of Mainz, and partly from the Celtic-Irish abbey of Sankt Gallen. Without doubt there was a connection between Sankt Gallen and Pannonhalma, but let us examine how much contact there was between Sankt Gallen and the Irish Celtic culture-sphere at this time.
According to tradition, Sankt Gallen was founded by an Irish monk who came from the Celtic culture-sphere, his name was Gallus and the church was built upon his ideas. The form of the István signet-ring seems to point to the orientation of the stone-age solar observatory on the Islands. The available pictures at the time were not clear enough to draw analogies between the two, so my research assistant Péter Teleki requested from the abbot in charge at Pannonhalma a 1:1 copy of the founding letter of Pannonhalma. The research of the original document uncovered some very startling facts.
After the Crown arrived in Hungary after the second World War in 1978, the scientific and information gathering research presupposed that it was created with measurements based on thumb measurement. We found the same measurements in the case of the signet-seal: its base measured two exact units (51 mm). The angles of the drawing contain the exact angulation of Stonehange. Without doubt this was a deliberate design since the multiplication of the signet-seal's a and b measurements give exactly the number 3.14 (pi). The width-measurements of the Holy Crown's hoop and cross-band are also two units of the thumb measurement.
The inscription Stephanus Rex does not specify if we are talking about Géza or his son Vajk as both received the same name in baptism. It also may be possible that the seal addressed King Kálmán. But since the church of Pannonhalma was built in King Géza's time it probably was in his possession. This theory is reinforced by the fact that the signet-ring's identifying lines give the number 1,000 according to the ancient Hungarian runic writing. The eight-pointed cross may also designate Venus as the letters of the signet ring also contain the word Ister. In today's Hungarian the message of the signet ring is as follows: the ring of the Venus-church.
The European continent bears the name of a woman, Europe, a Phoenician princess. The greatest river flowing through Europe bore the name Ister, which was the name of today's Danube. The Hungarian Church was named according to the feminine concept of the holy-mother-church. There seems to be a correlation between the signet-ring of the first church carrying the Venus name and the 1,000 sign with the Christian kingship in Hungary beginning in the year 1,000.
The original signet-ring was lost. This was probably the the royal signet ring. There are reports that the king's signet-ring was lost at the time of the Mongol invasion of 1241-42 as he attempted to flee. It may be probable that the Mongols obtained it. The Great khan of the Mongols by the name of Ögödej greatly desired to obtain the Holy Crown. This may have been the reason that his subordinate khans followed King Béla through the entire country. The Great khan Ögödej defeated China, India, Persia, the steppe regions and wanted to be crowned with the only suitable crown. That the Holy Crown did not fall prey may be due to the fact that the great Khan of the Mongols died and they withdrew from Hungary.
This is not the first great upheaval around the Holy Crown. The so called "Age of Adventures" in reality were very deliberate attempts to regain the plundered Avar treasures from the west, among them the Holy Crown. István Szigeti, a priest in Aachen, published a book in 1995 which proves with documented church history that at the time of the plundering of the Avar Kaganate Charlemagne took the Holy Crown. He had the crown, the crown-jewels and coronation symbols buried with him in 814 AD and it was for this reason that the above wars failed to uncover them. At the year of the founding of the Christian Kingdom in the year 1,000 these were all given back to Hungary by Otto III at the Pope's request. (Excerpts from an article by Tibor Berta published in the 1996/6 issue of the Demokrata, Budapest).
The preceding few lines discuss the spread of the cults of different Christian saints in Europe
Tibor Berta lives currently in Hungary. He is the author of several articles and books concerning Hungarian history and its connections with other ancient cultures. His recent articles are: "The Secret of the White Horse," which deals with Stonehenge; "The Land of Hungary and her Measurements from Heaven" connects the method of land measurement to ancient Mesopotamia.
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| Pannonhalma's signet ring, its orientation and measurements |