Historical moment: One millionth ethnic Hungarian takes oath of citizenship

“We are now celebrating the unity of our political nation,” President János Áder said in his address at the ceremony in which the one millionth ethnic Hungarian was granted Hungarian citizenship under the government’s dual citizenship programme, in Budapest on Saturday. 

The ceremony in the presidential Sándor Palace, in which Vojvodina farmer Miklós Lajkó and his wife took their oath of citizenship, was attended by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and House Speaker László Kövér.

Lajkó and his wife “have shown us what being Hungarian means;

they wanted to be Hungarian citizens because they consider themselves as Hungarian, their mother tongue is Hungarian, they went to a Hungarian school and their ancestors were Hungarian”.

“We, in the mother country, should do no more than thank them for all that, thank them for preserving the faith and love of the homeland from generation to generation; for loving in Hungarian, working in Hungarian, speaking Hungarian to their children and having Hungarian dreams,” the president said.

The Hungarian parliament passed a government-initiated dual citizenship law in 2011, aimed at ensuring fast-track Hungarian citizenship for Hungarians living abroad, mostly to ethnic Hungarians in neighbouring countries.

As we wrote before, a 99-year-old Szekler woman may become a Hungarian citizen for the third time in history. She has recently applied for Hungarian citizenship in Barót (Baraolt), Romania. (Read more HERE)

Also interesting news about Hungarian citizenship: Two Syrian Orthodox Church leaders took the Hungarian citizenship oath in Hungary’s Erbil Consulate in Iraq reported the State Secretariat of the Ministry of Human Capacities in september, 2017. (Read more HERE)

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI