Roman Catholic clergyman who personified uncompromising opposition to Fascism and Comunism in Hungary for more than five decades of the 20th century.
Politically active from the time of his ordination as a priest in 1915 he was arrested as an enemy of totalitarian governments twice in 1919 and again in 1944 the year in which he was consecrated bishop of Veszprém.
In 1945 he wa appointed primate of Hungary ahd archbishop of Esztergom. In 1946 he was made a cardinal.
His refusal to permit the Catholic schools of HUngary to be secularized led to his arrest in 1948 and conviction in 1949 on charges of treason. Sentenced to life imprisonment he was set free during the uprising of 1956 and when the Communist government regained control he sought asylum in the U.S. embassy in Budapest.
He rejected repeated requests from the Vatican to leave Hungary and relented only in 1971 at the entreaty of U.S. Pres. Richard M. Nixon.
As the guest of the Vatican and after 1971 in Vienna he criticized the pope´s attempts to deal with the Hungarian regime and in 1974 was retired from his posts as archbishop and primate.
His Memoirs were published in 1974.
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