On 20 April 2024, Ambassador Dániel Horogszegi Szilágyi-Landeck participated in the yearly Michiel de Ruyter commemoration at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. The ambassador gave a welcoming speech in Dutch language and laid a wreath at the grave of the admiral located in the crypt of the church.
In 1676, as one of his last heroic deeds, Admiral Michiel de Ruyter freed 26 Hungarian protestant preachers who were sentenced to galley slavery. The liberation plays an important role in the Dutch-Hungarian relations. In his speech Dániel Horogszegi Szilágyi-Landeck thanked the Stichting Michiel de Ruyter for the organisation and explained it was also of personal importance to him to be part of the commemoration as he has family ties to two of the liberated preachers and family living in Debrecen, the Calvanistic center of Hungary. Since 1895 the city hosts a memorial needle with the names of Mihály de Ruyter and the liberated preachers. With the liberation of the galley prisoners, de Ruyter saved lives and stood up for the persecuted and earned eternal memory in Hungary.
© Riekelt Pasterkamp
The event took place in the presence of Frits de Ruyter de Wildt, descendant of the admiral, members of the Stichting Michiel de Ruyter and representatives of the Royal Netherlands Navy.
