The Itinerary Congress of MELTE (the Association of Hungarian Church Archivists) 2021, Pannonhalma

The Association of Hungarian Archivists held its regular annual itinerary congress in Pannonhalma between 28 and 30 June 2021.

The Association of Hungarian Archivists held its regular annual itinerary congress in Pannonhalma between 28 and 30 June 2021. This year – because of the pandemic – the members of the Museologists’ Association of Christian Churches did not attend the conference, still, more than sixty people convened in the Monastery of Saint Martin. The participant of the three-day congress gathered for a warm-up programme in the Benedictine Monastery of Bakonybél where the Prior, Father Izsák showed them round in the church and the exhibition of the monastery’s history, which was opened for the public in 2018, in the year of the millennial jubilee of the abbey’s foundation; the colleagues of the Archives and the Museum of the Archabbey in Pannonhalma industriously contributed to the development of the exhibition. In the afternoon, the congress was resumed with the Association’s annual general meeting in the assembly hall of the Benedictine Secondary School of Pannonhalma. On the second day of the congress, lectures on history and the profession of archivists were delivered. On the part of the hosts, Father Konrád Dejcsics OSB introduced the Archabbey’s cultural strategy, Tamás Dénesi – the Director of the Archives – made a presentation about the good use of the archival basic research in the development of the products of the Archabbey, Zoltán Boros archivist gave a talk on the experiences of organizing the files of the economic archives in the Archives of the Archabbey in Pannonhalma, while Péter Tanai – the Director of the Museum – detailed the cooperation between the Order’s archives and museum with especial regard to the possibilities involved in the digital registers. At the end of the day, the participants visited the wine-cellars of the Archabbey in Pannonhalma where they could test fine wines. On the third day, following the tourists’ path, the participants were guided around the Archabbey, and they were allowed to examine the stacks of the library, the archives, and the museum. The day as well as the congress came to an end with a visit to the arboretum, the herb garden, and the recently opened museum of fragrances. You can see the programmes of the congress here: