News
Honouring Blessed Vilmos Apor Ch.C.H, martyr bishop
Budapest, November 7. Bishop Vilmos Apor of Altorja was a member of the Order, in the rank of honorary chaplain. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II on November 9, 1997, in St. Peter's Square. As this memorial day approached, the Apor Vilmos Society, the 12th District Local Government, representatives of local parishes, and the Hungarian Association of the Knights of Malta took part in a joint wreath-laying ceremony at his statue, situated in Apor Vilmos Square in the capital.
The dramatic sculpture in the square evokes the moment during the siege of the city in World War II, when Vilmos Apor, Bishop of Győr, protected girls and women who had taken refuge in the basement of the Bishop's Palace, from drunken Soviet soldiers who had broken in, and was fatally shot in the process. The drama took place on Good Friday in 1945. The bishop was taken by horse-drawn carriage through the streets of besieged Győr to the hospital, where he was operated on by the light of a kerosene lamp. All efforts were unsuccessful, and he returned to his Father on Easter Monday. On his deathbed, he prayed for the spiritual salvation of his attackers, and was relieved to hear that the soldiers had fled the scene without molesting the women. "It was worth it then!", he whispered..
His whole life had been devoted to helping the weak, the fallen, and the persecuted. "The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep" - in the spirit of the Gospel, he died a martyr's death on Easter Monday, 1945. His tomb is in the Héderváry Chapel of the Győr Cathedral, opposite the relic of King Saint Ladislaus.
