Roman Catholic Cardinal. He was born to a farming family in western Hungary. Ordained a priest in 1915 and consecrated Bishop of Veszprem in 1944, his strange odyssey began. He was quickly imprisioned by the Nazis. Undaunted, Pope Pius XII appointed him Archbishop and Primate of Hungary then raised him to the rank of Cardinal. It was the Communists turn and they arrested him on December 26, 1948 and sentenced him to life in prison. The Hungarian Revolt freed him but Soviet tanks crushed the uprising and re-imposed Communist rule. Cardinal Mindszenty sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. He spent the next 15 years in relative seclusion within a book lined room and the embassy garden. A letter arrived from President Nixon suggesting that his continued presence was not in Washington's best interest. A brokered asylum agreement was worked out between Rome and Budapest and he settled in Austria. He was stripped of his offices as Primate of Hungary. Pope Paul had such regard for Mindszenty that he left him in office until he was 81, even though the same pope had already decreed that all bishops were to tender their resignations to Rome on their 75th birthdays. He died there at the age of 83 and was given temporary burial in St. Laszio Chapel located in Grace Church at Mariazell, Austria. Political climate in Hungary changed and he was cleared by the new rulers paving the road home 16 years after his death. His remains were met at the city of Esztergom and his body was transfered to a horse drawn carriage which was followed by 50,000 marchers to the 19th-Century Church of the Assumption located on the Danube River. After an outdoor mass attended by thousands, the odyssey of the Cardinal had come to an end and he was reburied in the crypt located in the Basilica. Bio John R. Bacak