On International Women’s Day, Volunteer Ministers from the Church of Scientology Budapest expressed their appreciation for the women of the city.

Volunteer Ministers from the Church of Scientology Budapest celebrated International Women’s Day March 8 by making the day special for 1,000 of the city’s women. They presented each with an iris, a flower known to represent wisdom, hope and trust. 

International Women’s Day was observed for the first time on March 19, 1911, in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. The day was gradually adopted in countries across the globe, and in 1975, it was observed by the United Nations for the first time. 

In Hungary, it is a tradition to present flowers to the women in one’s life on Women’s Day.

Last year, concerned that this practice might be sidelined with the media reporting the first COVID-19 cases in the country, the Volunteer Ministers decided to take it on as a tradition of their own. A year later, cases and hospitalizations are surging in the country, so the volunteers took off from the Church of Scientology March 8 with their arms filled with irises that were destined to create 1,000 smiles.

The Scientology Volunteer Ministers of Hungary are headquartered at the Church of Scientology Budapest, whose new home was dedicated in 2016 by Mr. David Miscavige, ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion.

The Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers program is a religious social service created in the mid-1970s by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard.

A Volunteer Minister’s mandate is to be “a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others.” Their creed: “A Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather, he is trained to handle these things and help others achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well.”