George Tupou V of Tonga for the purposes of assuring that political independence and neutrality were retained. On 24 February 2012, he visited pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City. During his reign, George Tupou V oversaw reforms within the Tongan honours system which both expanded the number of Orders in the Kingdom and created rules to make the award of these Orders more egalitarian. In September 2011, Tupou V had surgery to remove a kidney following the discovery of a tumour. On 15 September 2011 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary from Pál Schmitt,
Coronation of the Hungarian monarch Coronation of the Hungarian monarch The Coronation of the Hungarian monarch was a ceremony in which the king or queen of the Kingdom of Hungary was formally crowned and invested with regalia. It corresponded to the coronation ceremonies that occurred in other European monarchies. While in countries like France and England the king's reign began immediately upon the death of his predecessor, in Hungary the coronation was absolutely indispensable as if it were not properly executed, the Kingdom stayed "orphaned". All monarchs had to be crowned as King of Hungary in order to promulgate laws there or exercise his royal