Hungary celebrates its own millennium

Thousands watched as King Stephen's sacred remains were carried past

Hungarians have been celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of their state with an air show, street music, dancing and fireworks.

The events were capped by the Eastern Orthodox Church's canonisation of Hungary's founding monarch, King Stephen - more than 900 years after the Catholic Church honoured him with a sainthood.

The Orthodox Church's unprecedented canonisation of a Roman Catholic saint was announced by Constantinople Patriarch Bartolomaios I at a mass in the capital Budapest, attended by a crowd of more than 25,000.

Budapest's Parliament building was showered in national colours

"One thousand years ago the church was not divided...Over the past few years, the demand has grown for the joint work of Christians," Pope John Paul II said in a message read out by Hungarian bishop Istvan Seregely.

From St Stephen's Basilica, worshippers escorted precious Roman Catholic relics - fragments of the skull and right hand of St Stephen - in a holy procession to parliament.

By the time King Stephen was canonised by the Catholic Church in 1081, the eastern and western halves of the church had split irrevocably.

Untouched

On Sunday morning an air show drew thousands of people to the banks of the Danube river. It included a descent by parachutists.

The BBC's correspondent in Budapest, Nick Thorpe, says no town or village was untouched by the celebrations.

The state authorities stressed the decentralised nature of the event, in an attempt to include as large a part of the population as possible.

Cultural events organised around the country included choir performances and historical pageants .

Every year Hungarians mark St Stephen's Day on 20 August, in honour of the king who ruled Hungary from 1000 to 1038. He is credited with having brought Christianity to the country's nomadic tribes.