Ark of the Covenant Statue

The statue is one of Győr’s most beautiful Baroque monuments. The lamb sitting on a seven-sealed book above the Ark of the Covenant symbolising the Old Testament represents Jesus, the author of the New Testament. The official story is that a soldier suspected of bigamy and using false names fled to a Jesuit monastery in 1729. Soldiers surrounded the monastery. The monks tried to transfer the fugitive to safety in the bishop’s castle in order to end the blockade. However, the soldier dressed as a ministrant at a Corpus Christi procession was recognised by his colleagues, and the armed soldiers disrupted the procession. During the scuffle, the ostensory fell from the priest’s hands and broke. The monument was erected in 1731 by King Charles III to atone for the offence to the Eucharist.