“Uplifting”. Princess Michael of Kent found the two church services she attended over the weekend “uplifting”, she told a reporter for the GPD Netherlands Press Association as she exited St Stephens Cathedral in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, Sunday.
Princess Michael, born Baroness Marie Christine von Reibnitz, and with a Hungarian mother, was in Budapest for the Requiem mass for Archduke Otto of Austria, Royal Prince of Hungary, who passed away at age 98 on July 4. She was also present at the funeral mass on Saturday in Vienna, Austria.
The Mass in St Stephens was the last but one step in the long journey of the remains of the son of the last Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia and King of Hungary, has taken. Later Sunday Otto von Habsburg’s heart was taken to the Benedictine convent in western Hungary’s Pallonhalma, to find its final resting place.
Otto is following an honoured Habsburg tradition by having his remains buried in different places. His body was put to rest late Saturday afternoon in the Imperial Burial Crypt in Vienna, after it was taken from Vienna’s St Stephens Cathedral through the streets of the Austrian capital to the ‘Kaisergruft’. In a private ceremony his coffin was placed next to that of his late wife Regina.
Princess Michael thought the two services were ‘uplifting for the soul’ and ‘absolutely wonderful’. ‘Very special’ were the words used by Archduke Carl Christian, husband to Princess Marie Astrid of Luxembourg. They too attended both the services in Vienna and in Budapest, both having been the capital cities (with Prague a third) of the Danube Dual Monarchy.
The funeral mass saw scores of royals flocking to Vienna, a city that has had a strained relation with royalty ever since the monarchy was abolished at the end of World war I. Crown Prince Otto was not able to enter his native Austria till 1966, after more than 40 years in exile and despite having an Austrian passport. The passport however was valid for all the countries of the world, except Austria itself.
Austria’s top politicians, from Federal President Heinz Fischer down, attended the funeral though, but the president unsurprisingly did not join in the singing of the old Imperial national anthem, sung at the end of the service in the Cathedral, which was filled to overflowing.
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia led the royal mourners, with among others Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein and his Princess Marie, Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, Infanta Cristina of Spain, former Kings Mihai of Romania and Simeon II of Bulgaria, Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Parma and Princess Annemarie, Princess Michael of Kent, Dom Duarte of Portugal, Prince Vittorio Emanuele of Italy and scores of German princes. © RB
A short non-professional video impression of the start of the service in Budapest:
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