St Elijah’s Day – July 20

             This is Temerin’s votive festival since 1854, when a catastrophic hailstorm destroyed the crops in the fields around on this day. Since it was St Elijah’s Day that the greatest tragedy hit them, and since they had wanted to get rid of natural catastrophes that occured to them in the previous years as well, our forefathers pledged they would celebrate this day as the town’s votive festival.

            The first mention of the public celebrations after the festive service at church dates from 1934. Following World War II, these celebrations were supressed to the church and church garden.

            In 1991 the custom of blessing the bread and organizing a procession in the streets was revived, and it reached its peak and was the most memorable in 2000, when the new Roman Catholic church was consecrated, and in 2001, when the town received a Millenial flag from the Hungarian town of Mórahalom. For the citizens of Temerin, another memorable event was the memorial programme in the sports hall in 1996 on the occasion of the centennary of the Hungarians’ conquest of their new home. It was organized by the Democratic Community of the Voivodinian Hungarians and the Szirmai Hungarian Cultural Association.