3. To the great advantage of the Hungarian people, divine Providence disposed that a thousand years ago a man of extraordinary prudence, endowed with exceptional ability and great wisdom, would receive from Pope Sylvester the crown with which he was crowned during the Solemnity of Christmas in the year 1000. It was not long before the Hungarian State became independent and was added to the number of European kingdoms.

Stephen did not accept the crown as an honour, but a service; he therefore, always and in all circumstances, sought the good of the community entrusted to him, both by organizing and defending the kingdom and by promulgating new decrees, as well as by fostering the development of the two cultures, the human and the divine.

King Stephen was untainted by the allure of his advantages and successes and, having overcome the enticements of his time, he found a living source from which he drew the strength to guide his people with faithful service. A writer has summed up this spiritual source concisely and with insight:  In always presenting himself as though he were before the tribunal of Christ, whom he contemplated with the eyes of his heart and a face such as to command respect, he showed that he had Christ on his lips and carried him in his heart and in all his actions ("The Greater Legend of St Stephen", chap. 20, Writers of Hungarian history at the time of the commanders and of the kings of the Árpádian Family, printed and edited by E. Szentpétery, I-II, Budapest 1937, 1938, 11 392).