Choirs, musical groups and religious instruction groups from the diocese as well as from other cities around the country will participate in the celebration with performances of sacred works and a focus on Biblical themes, said church official Balázs Garadnay at a press conference on Thursday.
On August 21, the play The Good Pastor, a commemoration of János Brenner, a martyr from the crackdown on the church after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, will take place in the Pécs basilica. On the following day, Debrecen's Csokonai Theatre, the Harmadik Theatre of Pécs and the Gyula Illyés Hungarian National Theatre of Uzhgorod, Ukraine, will perform T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral.
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The highlight of the celebration will be a mass on Saint Stephen's Square at 11:00 in the morning on August 23. Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schönborn will be the pope's extraordinary envoy at the mass.
In the evening on Sunday, the Pannon Philharmonic will close the celebration with a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 8, the Symphony of a Thousand.
Bishop Mihály Mayer said it was important to remember on the thousandth anniversary of the establishment of the diocese how the church had enriched the lives of people.
State Secretary at the Ministry of Education and Culture Ferenc Csák noted that Pécs would have a chance to show its religious and cultural values to the world when it becomes a European Capital of Culture in 2010. The ministry is supporting the celebration of the anniversary of the diocese as an event in the run-up to the 2010 programme, he added.
Pécs's annual Mediterranean Mood festival will take place at the same time as the anniversary celebration, said Pécs Youth Centre director Ferenc Orcsik. Almost 30 events are on the festival programme.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI) / Photo: MTI
