Order of Malta

Bishop Cserháti passed from earthly existence to eternity on July 22, 2023 at the age of 76, after a long illness borne with patience and faith.

His episcopal motto was characteristic of his entire personality: "Caritas omnia vincit",. love conquers all.

He radiated love and serenity. Accuracy was another of his qualities - he always wrote down his sermons, each of which was a real theological study - as well as his amazing work ethic.

He was born in 1947 in Túrterebes, a small village in today's Romania, Szatmár county, in a poor farming family. He studied theology in Gyulafehérvár, and was ordained there on April 18, 1971, by the great bishop of Transylvania, Áron Márton, whom he later served for a time as master of ceremonies. He then served as a chaplain in Kaplony and then in Máramarossziget. In 1979 he left Ceausescu's Romania and settled in Germany, where in 1979-1980 he studied at the St. Georgen College of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt, and then until 1982 at the Leopold Franzens University in Innsbruck, obtaining a doctorate in theology.

From 1982 to 1984, he was chaplain of the parish of St. Margaret in Munich, then parish priest of the Hungarian Catholic Mission in Munich. He was President of the Hungarian Caritas in Munich from 1985,

From 1990 to 1991, he was an associate professor at the Roman Catholic College of Religious Studies in Gyulafehérvár.

In 1991 he became member of the board of trustees of the Kardinal Mindszenty Stiftung.

He continued the mission that József Mindszenty took on in his old age, by becoming "the faithful shepherd of scattered Hungarians": from 1996 to 2006, he served as the European delegate of Bishop Attila Miklósházy, bishop to Catholic Hungarians living abroad, and from 2006 he became the coordinator of the Hungarian pastoral service abroad.

In 2003, he received the title of papal chaplain.

He was inducted into the Order of Malta as magisterial chaplain in 2004, conventual chaplain ad honorem in 2011, leading chaplain of the Hungarian Association in 2016, and in 2020 he received the Grand Cross.

On June 15, 2007 XVI. Pope Benedict appointed him titular bishop of Centuria and auxiliary bishop of Esztergom-Budapest. He was ordained a bishop in Esztergom on August 15, 2007.

His merits were recognized not only by the church, but also by the states. On March 15, 2021, on the occasion of the national holiday, he received the Middle Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit for his tireless work on behalf of Hungarians scattered around the world.

On February 3, 2023, Pope Francis accepted his resignation from the office of auxiliary bishop, submitted with reference to his age, and allowed him to retire.

 

Bishop Cserháti regularly celebrated the Requiem for the members of the Order of Malta on the Feast of All Souls. At these Masses, he spoke year after year about one of the greatest secrets of our faith, the certainty of the resurrection. His last homily, in 2022, colorful and rich, now seems startlingly relevant to his life of loving support to the Order and to the entire Catholic community:

 

"One way or another, everyone somehow wants to live on even after their death: to live in their descendants and in the memory of others. To live on in their deeds, works, fame, papers, degrees and honors; in literature and history, in works of art and on memorial plaques, on tombstones, or indeed on those armorial shields which we bless  and place in the memory of our deceased members within the glorious walls of the famous Matthias Church in Buda, in the Maltese Chapel. All of this, however, is just a struggle in the earthly dimension of human existence, hopeless in the face of the fleetingness of this world, about which the ancient psalmist lamented long ago: "As for man, his days are like grass: he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more." (Psalm 103, 15-16) "The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength a fourscore; yet their span is but toil and troublethey are soon gone, and we fly away."  (Psalm 90, 10).

But there is another face of the medal, another dimension, an eternal and permanent one. For us, for living people, the dead really do disappear, but not for God; and for those who have fallen asleep in death, as the apostle Paul beautifully points out "God will be everything to every one" (1 Cor 15, 28). In his speech at Athens, he affirms: "In him we live, we move and have our being" (Acts 17, 28); we are of God's race, sons of God, created children of eternal creation."

 

We feel his love and care for us now as before, and our love for him is also unbroken, even though he is no longer with us here on Earth.

 

László Visy