The millennium

The Czech and Hungarian Catholic primates, cardinals Miloslav Vlk and Laszlo Paskai, said a mass in St Margaret Church at the close of the Prague celebrations of the millennium of the Hungarian statehood and Christianity.The millennium marks the coronation of Stephen I (Istvan, 977-1038), as the first king of Hungary in 1000. He was canonized in 1083. According to a legend, Stephen was buried by then Prague Bishop Adalbert (Vojtech), a later martyr and saint, who, besides the Benedictinian Moneastery in Brevnov, where today's ceremony took place, also founded the abbeys in Pannohalma, Hungary, and Gniezno, Poland. Since 1992, Catholic masses in Hungarian have been celebrated in Prague's St Vojtech church on the first Sunday of every month.