Partying in his youth, now a Jesuit priest: the journey of Fr Ferenc Mihalkov
A life dedicated to healing and creativity has emerged from a youth marked by fatherlessness, alcoholism and depression - but also by Providence, a devoted mother, the Regnum Marianum community and a lifelong love of drawing. Today, Jesuit Fr Ferenc Mihalkov illustrates the Jesuit world through an endearingly imperfect St Ignatius character, while - as a spiritual companion - supports people carrying emotional wounds and navigating life crises. He shared the (inner) journey that brought him here.
Growing Up Between Love and Loss
Fr Ferenc Mihalkov grew up in the heart of Budapest, where he also attended school. His friends used to joke that until he was twenty, he hardly needed a public transport pass because he rarely ventured beyond the city's fifth district. He lived with his teacher mother, his Bulgarian father - a writer by profession - his maternal grandparents and his younger brother, who is a year his junior. When Feri was five, his parents divorced and his father returned to Bulgaria.
Although the boys occasionally wrote letters to their father by hand and spent a few summer days with him from time to time, Feri essentially grew up without a father - and therefore without a paternal or masculine role model. At home, the narrative cast the absent father as the villain. Whenever the boys misbehaved, they would hear the familiar reproach: "You're just like your father."
Alongside the sense of absence came shame. Being half Bulgarian became something the Mihalkov brothers learned to be embarrassed about.
Feri's mother struggled with alcoholism. He and his younger brother sensed that something was wrong, but only as adults were they able to name it for what it was. Children raised by an addicted parent often become acutely sensitive to other people's moods. They constantly monitor the shifting expectations around them, develop an overwhelming need to please, and gradually lose touch with their own feelings and needs. Feri experienced all of this though his mother, despite her illness, gave her sons everything she could. She worked tirelessly to teach them how to cooperate as brothers and made every effort to help them find supportive communities where they could grow.
After finishing secondary school, Feri enrolled in the Hungarian and Bulgarian Studies programme at Eötvös Loránd University. A deep desire had awakened in him to reconnect with his father. As an adult, he longed to speak with him man to man—to ask how he saw his own life and how he had experienced the divorce. During those years they met several times in Bulgaria, but the conversation that might have brought reconciliation never quite happened.
University life brought Feri a new sense of freedom - but also a delayed rebellion. As a child, there had been little room to push boundaries, since his mother's firm discipline quickly curbed any strong-willed attempts at independence. Once that restraint disappeared, years of suppressed longing for freedom burst out with full force.
"From my second year onwards, all I cared about was partying, women and drinking. I graduated from high school in 1997 and managed to drift through life like that until 2000. Then I'd had enough, so I went to New York for a year to work. That was the first time I consciously began asking myself what I actually wanted to do with my life.
I was on my own. For the first time, I had to stand on my own feet. As I learned to live independently, my relationship with God also deepened.
I felt that I was in God's hands—that He was holding me and shaping my life."
Growing in God's Care
From home, Feri inherited the traditional framework of religious life: Sunday Mass, familiar prayers and the rhythm of the Church's feasts. A living, personal relationship with God came later - but the faith he experienced in childhood community laid the foundations for it.
"We attended catechism at St Joseph's Parish in Józsefváros, where we also received our First Communion and joined the Regnum Marianum community. One of Regnum's main gathering places was there. Three remarkable priests were role models for us: Fr Feri Bajzáth, Fr Sándor Somogyi - whom we all called Soma - and Fr Gábor László, whom everyone simply knew as *Pater*. They had an infectious enthusiasm - full of joy, energy and life - yet they were also deeply grounded.
Compared with ordinary catechism classes, Regnum offered something far richer and more alive. There I encountered a living Church and a faith that was meant to be lived. Through camps, excursions and regular gatherings I discovered that a relationship with God naturally belongs within community. Faith, Hungarian identity, devotion to Mary, family life, friendships, sport and play all belonged together. It felt like the fullness of life. We experienced that being a Christian was something joyful - that belonging to God was genuinely good."
Learning to Follow
His confirmation was a major milestone in Feri’s vocation; he was seventeen years old at the time. While wondering which patron saint to choose, he asked his future confirmation sponsor about his own. The answer was St Ignatius of Loyola.
Feri was captivated by the founder of the Jesuits. He read Ignatius's biography several times and knew almost immediately that he wanted to live as Ignatius had lived.
At the time, he could not yet put into words exactly what that meant. Years later, as a Jesuit himself, he understood.
"On the day of my confirmation, it was as though God gently pulled back the curtain covering my life just enough to let a narrow beam of light reveal the direction. What fascinated me about Ignatius was that he was already a successful adult with a promising career as a knight and diplomat, yet he was capable of making a complete U-turn. He stepped away from the well-trodden path, left behind status, recognition and ambition, and entrusted himself entirely to God. I always wanted to live a life that truly mattered. In Ignatius I saw someone who had found real depth and meaning - something worth dedicating your whole life to. And he did."
It would still take several years before Feri himself made that commitment. High school was followed by university, rebellion and his year in America. Then, in 2001, he returned to Hungary. Instead of finding direction, he felt he was returning not only to university and an increasingly difficult home environment but also to aimlessness. Depression gradually took hold. He stopped attending lectures and slowly drifted away from his studies. There were bright spots during this period - he was in a serious relationship with a woman he deeply loved - but the overwhelming sense that life lacked meaning eventually brought him to breaking point. At his lowest, his thoughts returned to the glimpse of direction he had received on the day of his confirmation. He knew he had to act. Feri sought out the Jesuit Provincial in Hungary and told him everything.
He was met not with judgement but with wisdom and compassion. The Provincial encouraged him to attend an Ignatian retreat at the Manresa Spirituality Centre in Dobogókő.
He came home with three clear resolutions: to begin seeing a psychologist, to seek a spiritual director while discerning his vocation, and finally to complete his university degree.
He kept every one of those promises. From 2006 onwards he joined a Jesuit vocation discernment group, where men trying to discern between marriage and the priesthood spent a year praying and reflecting together. At the same time he completed his Hungarian studies at Pázmány Péter Catholic University. He also made perhaps the hardest decision of his life: ending his relationship.
"I felt it wouldn't have been fair to begin serious discernment while keeping my girlfriend as a 'Plan B.' The breakup hurt her deeply. It hurt me too - but it hurt her even more. She felt that it was selfish of God to separate us simply because of His plans for me. Even so, it was my decision."
As his relationship with God deepened through prayer, retreats and inner work, certainty gradually emerged. Two years later, he knew beyond doubt that God was calling him to become a Jesuit. In 2008 he applied to enter the Society of Jesus. After his candidacy year, he entered the novitiate on 20 September 2009, at the age of thirty-one. Years of study followed. He read philosophy and theology in Italy, Boston, Budapest and Kolzsvár (Cluj-Napoca), before joining the Jesuit community in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureș) in 2020.
Finding his life in the Father also opened the way to reconciliation with his own father.
"Our mother died in 2023. Soon afterwards, more and more of our Bulgarian relatives passed away as well, until my brother and I were the only family our father had left. When we suggested that he move to Hungary so we could care for him in old age, he agreed surprisingly quickly. Becoming a grandfather hasn't been easy for him, but he is part of my brother's four children's lives, and we are able to spend time together too. It's not the classic close father-and-son relationship, but I can feel that he is happy to see me. There is love between us, and for that I am deeply grateful."
Fr Ferenc Mihalkov was ordained on 14 October 2023, just a few months after the death of his beloved mother. In August 2024, he returned to Dobogókő - this time as a Jesuit priest - where he has since been serving as a spiritual companion.
Finding Home in Spiritual Accompaniment
"Within religious life, my particular calling is spiritual accompaniment. I've always loved silence and listening. Even as a child, I was drawn to deep conversations. Throughout my Jesuit formation I regularly made retreats, received spiritual direction myself, and accompanied many others. Time and again I've witnessed how God meets people exactly where they are. Everyone has a relationship with God - whether they realise it or not. A spiritual companion doesn't focus only on the person sitting opposite, as a therapist or counsellor might. We also attend to the relationship between that person and God, entering into it through prayerful presence.
Spiritual accompaniment isn't about directing someone's life. It's about walking beside another person for a stretch of their journey with God.
We listen. We create a safe space where whatever longs to surface in the silence can emerge. We help people reflect and become more aware of God's presence in their lives. The Holy Spirit leads; we simply accompany.
More and more people are seeking spiritual accompaniment today. They have grown weary of living on the surface and long for a deeper place where they no longer feel fragmented. In the past, people usually sought spiritual direction before making major life decisions. Today, most come because they want to heal. We encounter countless wounds, brokenness and trauma. We trust that, together with the Holy Spirit, we can help people bring order to their lives, find healing, and restore their relationships - with God, with themselves and with others."
Drawing Himself into Being
A gently humorous, slightly quirky St Ignatius appears in scene after scene - illustrations that invite readers to pause, smile and become acquainted with the "Jesuit character." Through these drawings, Fr Feri captures the distinctive values and spirit of Jesuit community life.
"My earliest memory of drawing is my brother and me clutching thick wax crayons and simply drawing for hours on end. For a while, creativity disappeared from my life, so I'm grateful that as a Jesuit I've rediscovered the joy of making something new. Illustration allows me to connect simultaneously with a text, with my fellow Jesuits and with God. I mostly create artwork for Jesuit publications and for books written by members of the order.
Through this slightly awkward, cartoon-like Ignatius, I'm trying to portray the Jesuit community itself. The figure isn't meant to make fun of anyone. Rather, it reflects our imperfect yet genuine desire to place our trust in God.
An important part of the Jesuit mission is engaging with the present moment and inviting people into dialogue. Visual storytelling is a wonderful language for reaching people, both online and offline. As Jesuits, we are called to communication and communion - to building community. I hope my drawings can contribute to both. In the Jesuit vocation I have found a riverbed wide enough to hold everything I love, everything I have been given the talent to do, everything through which I can serve. And all those streams can flow in the same direction—towards God."
The English translation was produced with large language model and reviewed by a human editor.
