Good marriage is not exoticism, Tamás Mohay told us while his wife Ilona Keresztes encouraged everyone to not be afraid of marriage. They are the faces of this year’s Marriage Week in Hungary, which held its opening press conference on 6 February in the capital’s Marriage Hall.
“Marriage is a gift from God,” the moderator of the press conference, Zoltán Movotny, noted in his introduction. The president of the Association of Protestant journalists also informed us about how this initiative was born.
The Marriage Week movement was established in Great-Britain seventeen years ago, after the idea of Richard and Maria Kane. The couple's main goal was to introduce those traditional values and principles which can make a marriage successful and happy. Today this program is organized annually throughout twenty-one countries, including Hungary. We joined in 2008.
Kornél Herjeczki, a member of the Marriage Week organizing committee, shared with us that many people consider marriage a burden or difficulty, but they still established the program with the slogan saying, that this is the celebration of commitment. Their goal is to draw attention on the importance of the values of marriage and family, to help the ones preparing for getting married, and to give suggestions to the couples facing difficulties. Marriage Week is a Christian initiative, which would like to add the professional knowledge to the moral principles.
Nurtured by commitment
Ferenc Cserháti, associate bishop of Esztergom, pointed out the common fact that today bad news sells better than the good news. Everyone knows about the high number of divorces, about the reduction of marriages, and how hard it is to balance career and family – interestingly the Holy Scripture does similarly, when it tells us about marriage. If we take a look at the Gospel, it introduces us to several negative stories from this topic. For example the marriage in Cana, when Jesus was asked about what should happen to the adulteress.
We have to deal with similar issues today as well, and have to give answers, the bishop expressed, adding that we should not forget to discuss the values of marriage and family from time to time. According to his opinion these are: relying on and loving each other.
At the end he told us about the locks on the bridge, which proves to him that young people also need long-lasting, permanent love. The locks without keys symbolizes that no one can break these bonds.
Moving forward together
Pál Lackner, Lutheran bishop, told us that conflicts alone are not a problem but they must be dealt with, and in this we have to help others. We must make the people aware of this. “Churchill said that democracy is a time-consuming thing, but there is nothing better" - the bishop said, quoting the words of the former British prime-minister. “We can apply this sentence to marriage as well,” he continued “marriage is time and energy consuming, but in the end there is nothing better. Marriage is the union of two people who look forward and above together.”
Last but not least the faces of the event, Ilona Keresztes, news editor at Kossuth Radio, and her husband Tamás Mohay, an ethnographer, got the opportunity to speak. Tamás Mohay summed up the characteristics of their marriage in six points. The first was: “Who searches hard, will be found as well," which became the motto of the Marriage Week in Hungary.
The meaning of this motto is that people must believe in finding the right partner. They should not settle for incomplete solutions, should not move-in together with anyone. Marriage can be compared to a house, which we build carefully before moving in. We need the right foundation and a roof over our heads. Being together with somebody without any commitment is dangerous, because it has no foundation. This is the end of many relationships. Today girls see a wrong model around them about how they are supposed to behave, and don't believe that boys like girls better whom they can respect and who has the right attitude, Ilona Keresztes told us, justifying, why this particular sentence has become the motto of the event.
"There are conflicts in every marriage," followed her husband. After this he talked about the place of marriage, love and their lifestyle. The ethnographer added to the main characteristics, that good marriage is not exoticisms. Finally he shared with the audience, that marriage is not a private matter.
Besides this we asked the couple to tell us the secret of a good marriage. According to them we need love and taking responsibility above everything else. Without these, no human relationship will work. This means accepting and helping our partner unconditionally, even when it's not for our own advantage. In marriage a person leaves the family to be united with his or her partner. God created the world like that. Marriage means that two people become one, belonging together for eternity. If we do not have this unity, or we do not seek it, then we cannot talk about a real marriage, even with all the official formalities.
After this Ilona Keresztes told us, that she has never met any young woman who wanted to remain single. “They long for a good marriage, to love the person for eternity with which they share their life.” Because of this, the news editor encourages everyone to get married with the person they love. There are many people who do not dare to take this step, to unite their lives in this form.
Written by Reformatus.hu, translated by Anita Polgári
photo: Dimény András