In nation after nation, a global culture war is being fought on the same battle lines: citizen against cosmopolitan, populist against expert, democrat against judge. Bound up with these battles is a dispute between those who believe that authority has a divine origin against those who would derive it from formal procedure. Secularism is being challenged by a return of the sacred.
One can see this in Hungary, which on January 1, 2012, proclaimed that the “constitutional continuity of Hungary's statehood and the unity of the nation” is embodied in the Holy Crown of St Stephen. This thousand-year-old relic, a Byzantine crown whose gold bands are decorated with bright enamel and topped by a bent cross, was a gift (it is said) from Pope Sylvester to St Stephen, Hungary's first king, it symbolises Hungary's independence from any earthly power and submission to the spiritual power of Christ.
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