Bust of József Mindszenty

The statue of the martyred head of the church, the work of Tibor Tórök Túri, is a friendly gift from the local government of Békés county, which is the new home of more than a hundred displaced families from Tallós. ; The village leadership of Tallós chose the 60th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence of 1956 as a worthy date for the event, since József Mindszenty (1892, Csehimindszent – 1975, Vienna) was also imprisoned by the communist authorities after the Arrow Cross. ; The inauguration ceremony on October 22, 2016 began with a mass, which was celebrated by Canon Róbert Kiss, the episcopal vicar entrusted with the pastoral care of the Hungarian Catholic faithful of the Archdiocese of Nagyszombat and the parish priest of Komárom, together with the parish priest of Galánta, Attila Józsa, and Sándor Tóth, parish governor of Tallós. ; After the mass, the ceremony continued with a recitation by a female student. After that, Kossuth Prize-winning actor Imre Boráros performed an excerpt from the monodrama Állok Istenért, egyházért, hazaért – Mindszenty József’s altar stone, which he presented in 2010, and then recited the poem Áltániája (Litany of the Hungarians of the Uplands) by the teacher and writer József Gágyor, who has lived in Tallós for decades. Zoltán Horváth, the mayor of Tallós, emphasized in his speech that although he was not aware of József Mindszenty’s specific connections to the Uplands, the prince-primate, as a martyr of all Hungarians, also belonged to the Hungarians here. He added that the inauguration of the statue is also timely because the cardinal’s courageous stand can also set an example for the contemporary struggles of the Hungarians of the Uplands. He thanked the creator of the work, Tibor Túri Török, who lives in Keszthely, and the Békés County Government for the bust he received as a gift. ; In the rest of the ceremony, Ferenc Takács, who is now from Tótkomlós, spoke with tears about how his father was deported from Alsószeli to Tótkomlós on September 27, 1947, from where many Slovak families moved to the former homes of those expelled from the Highlands. For this reason, he is also strongly attached to the Highlands, as evidence of which a Mindszenty statue is being presented to Tallós. ; Tibor Túri Török, a self-taught sculptor living in Keszthely, said: "The replica of the statue already stands in the garden of the St. Margaret Church in Lehel Square in Budapest, on the side facing Váci Street. This is the first statue of the cardinal in the Highlands." In Felvidék, there are nearly two dozen other works: in Zselíz there is a statue of one of the city's famous natives, Ágoston Fischer-Colbrie, in Nagykapos there is a statue of László Mécs and Sándor Petőfi, and in Nagyszelmenc there is a statue of István Dobó.