Mária Út Pilgrimage Office opened in Ferenciek Square in Budapest

Bence Rétvári, the parliamentary state secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, highlighted at Tuesday’s press conference in Budapest: since Christianity has existed, there have been pilgrimages. Throughout history, many fashions have risen and then fallen, but pilgrimage has always been important to people, as everyone returns from these trips as a different person, recharged. That is why it is important that this opportunity opens up to as many people as possible – stated the state secretary. The Mária Út is a popular and well-known pilgrimage route, since every year ten thousand people make the entire pilgrimage, or one section of it, Bence Rétvári noted. As he said, sensing the importance of this, the government decided to support the initiative with HUF 50-50-50 million in the following years, and supported the proposal that the Mária Út could be included in the European Cultural Routes. In addition to Hungary, the Way of Mary also covers Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Austria, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, therefore, in addition to Hungarian publications related to the pilgrimage route, information in English is also available at the pilgrimage point, which partly contains information about the entire route and partly about certain details. – highlighted the state secretary. The pilgrimage site that opened in one of the busiest areas of the capital has a message for passers-by and half of the tourists, because religious tourism and pilgrimage are about encounters – stressed Lőrinc Nacsa, ministerial commissioner responsible for coordinating the measures necessary to implement the National Religious Tourism Action Plan of the Prime Minister’s Office.