The unusual shaped church and parish building sanctified in 1987 was designed by Péter Ráskai. The three-piece fresco-secco depicting an Emmaus scene in the atrium and the murals in the sanctuary of the crypt depicting the eight beatitudes and the resurrected Christ were painted by Asztrik Kákonyi. The stained-glass windows on the two sides of the sanctuary depicting the crucifixion of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit were designed by him and constructed by Attila Mohai.Two enamel pieces made by László Barabás can be seen on the wall of the sanctuary: above the figure of Christ almost bending from the cross, under it the tabernacle door with the Eucharist symbols (chalice, ear of wheat, grapes).The statues depicting Saint Therese of Lisieux, Saint Anthony and Saint Francis of Assisi, as well as Saint Joseph are the artistic carvings of Ferenc Berecz.The two series of glass mosaics designed by Imre Tolnay were made by István Krizsán: the 9 Biblical scenes covering the balustrade of the gallery and the 14 stations of the cross. The mosaic depicting the Merciful Jesus was created by Szilvia Krizsán.The statues of the nourishing and teaching Christ and of Our Lady of Lourdes (works of Tibor Rieger), as well as the statue of Saint Pope John Paul II (work of Ervin Páljános) are standing on the square in front of the church.
The Nádorváros Calvary Hill was once a Celtic and later a Roman cemetery. In the 12th-13th century, the provostry church and captiular headquarters named after St Adalbert stood here. These were destroyed during the 16th-century Turkish raids. In the 17th century, the military authority erected a scaffold here. The Jesuits built the Calvary in the early 18th century. A wide stone staircase leads up the hill to the crosses of the crucified Christ and the two rogues. Baroque chapels designed by Martin Wittwer Athanasius stand at the foot of the Calvary. The seven stations along Calvary Street depicting the sufferings of Jesus were made in 1722.
The “Society for Sick and Dying Servants”, founded by St Camillus, was in service in the Győr hospital from 1761. The blessed activities of the Camillian fathers was ended by Joseph II’s dissolution of the monastic orders. However, their church in Nádorváros remained, with the order’s stone coat-of-arms on its facade. The altar structure filling the back wall of the sanctuary features 15 gilded wooden sculptures. The central figures of the statue group are the Virgin Mary dressed in the sun above and the kings St Stephen and St Ladislaus on the two sides. The high altarpiece depicting the divine experience of St Camillus was painted by Antonio Capacci of Florence in 1780. Two side altars adorn the nave. The relief’s scene on the pulpit’s balustrade is related to the movement of the statue figure standing on its sounding board: raising the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments, Moses prepares to throw them among the people who have lowered themselves to worship the golden calf. In the rectory next to the church, you can see an exact copy of Jesus’s burial shroud, which is preserved in Turin.
Following the recapture of the Győr castle from the Turks (1598), the fleeing Serbs were allowed to settle in Újváros. There was already a church standing on the site of today’s church in 1703; this was converted in 1727 by the Serbian community into an orthodox church with a variety of stylistic features. As the Serbian population slowly “disappeared” from the city, the Serbian church stood alone for a long time. In 1997, the Serbian Orthodox Church gave the restored church together with its rectory building to the Győr Greek Catholic Congregation for permanent use. One special feature of the buttressed church is its Late-Baroque-framed iconostasis and Late-Baroque-style row of pews. The iconostasis, together with its furniture, is a Late-Baroque work in which the Orthodox way of expression is uniquely blended with contemporary Central and Western European styles. The onion-domed tower stands in front of the beautifully arched facade. Instead of the former Baroque gate, the scheme-arched gate opening is filled with a modern, double-leaf iron gate. Old Serbian gravestones can be seen in the churchyard.
The Győr Reformed congregation bought the Újváros “Red Ox” inn in 1784 and then measured out the place where that year they built their towerless church opening onto a courtyard. The congregation used this church until the construction of the current church. The present rectory was completed on the site of the inn in 1863. In 1901, the consistory decided to establish a new church. The archaic, neo-Gothic church was built in 1905-1906 based on the plans of Károly Csányi (modelled on the Reformed church in Brasov, since demolished). The Star of Bethlehem, which leads to Jesus, on the tower’s needle-pointed steeple can be seen from afar. The rooster on the facade warns that nobody should deny Christ like Peter did. The church’s interior furnishings are uniform, and the monumental hall space is enriched with Gothic decoration. The Moses chair was made by Győr sculptor Martin Kelemen.
The eclectic-style synagogue was built by the neologist Israelite congregation. The representative building, completed in 1870 in the spirit of historicism and Art Nouveau based on the plans of Pest architect Károly Benkó, served as a model for the construction of synagogues in other cities, a worthy antetype for high-capacity synagogues well-suited to the metropolitan environment. The synagogue’s octagonal interior, covered with a dome, complete with circular balconies, offers stunning views. It was rebuilt in 1926-27: by transforming the eastern staircases, a winter prayer hall was created The building, restored in 2006, has wonderful acoustics and is also the venue for the museum’s permanent exhibition and cultural events. Amongst other things, here you can see the János Vasilescu (1923-2006) collection of post-World War II Hungarian fine art.
The church was built in 1784-85 in a closed courtyard and without a tower. The canopies protecting the entrances were added to the facade later. The filigree round-arched, wrought-iron supports bear ornate iron tops similar to drapery. The main ornament of the single-roomed church with an internal gallery is the altar combined with a carved late Baroque pulpit. The large altarpiece was painted by Petőfi’s friend, Soma Orlay Petrich. In front of the altar is a red sandstone baptismal font from 1817 with a bronze statue group depicting Jesus’s baptism on its cover. The gallery can be accessed via curved stairs in the four corners of the room. The “Caesar-type” organ was built in 1926. The gilded-white facade with its straight, semi-circular closure of the previous instrument built in 1791 was retained. The enormous organ with modern sound therefore fits in harmoniously with the image of the “old church”.
The Carmelite monks arrived in Győr in 1697. Their church was built between 1721 and 1725 according to the plans of their lay brother Martin Witwer of Athanasius. The altars and statues were created by the Carmelite brother Dominic. The monastery was completed in 1732. Lying behind the church’s Italianate facade is a uniquely beautiful, elliptical interior topped with a dome and a square sanctuary. Martino Altomonte painted the high altarpiece with King St Stephen and Prince St Emeric paying homage before the Virgin Mary as well as the paintings of the side altars – the death of St Joseph, the martyrdom of St John of Nepomuk, the heart wound of St Theresa and the transfiguration of St John the Baptist. The earliest part of the building complex, completed in 1718, is a copy of the famous Loreto Chapel, the house of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Above this altar stands a statue of the Saracen Madonna, created in 1717, with the child Jesus in her arms (both their faces are carved from black ebony and they have crowns on their heads). Inside the tiny chapel on its facade is a snow-white Baroque work known as the “Foam Mary”.
Jesuits settled in the city in 1627 and built a church between 1634 and 1641 modelled on Rome’s Church of Il Gesù. The monastery and school were also completed in 1667. The church’s interior is early Baroque in style. The high altarpiece depicting the transfiguration of St Ignatius as well as the ceiling frescoes of the sanctuary and nave (Ascension of the Spirit of St Ignatius and the Annunciation) were painted by prominent Viennese artist Paul Troger and two of his fellow artists. The beautiful Baroque pulpit was made in 1749 and the organ-case in 1755. There is an angel concert fresco above the organ. A shell pattern dominates the decoration of the richly carved pews and doors. There are three chapels on each side of the nave. Their furnishings are older than those of the main nave. The Way of the Cross Chapel which opens from the sanctuary features reliefs by Mária Pátzay created in 1980. The Benedictines used the building complex from 1802 after the dissolution of the Jesuit Order.
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.
The main church of the Diocese of Győr, founded by King St Stephen in 1001, is located on Chapter Hill, which rises at the confluence of the Rába and the Danube. It was first built in Romanesque style in the 11th century. It was rebuilt in Gothic style after the Mongol invasion and then extended with Gothic side-aisles and a side chapel in the 14th and 15th centuries. The St Ladislaus reliquary was preserved in the latter; this can now be viewed in the neighbouring visitors’ centre. Each 27 June, a procession accompanying the reliquary moves through the streets of the city centre. The church was rebuilt in Baroque style after the Turkish ravishes, under the office of the bishops Draskovich, Széchenyi and Zichy. The huge, stirring ceiling frescoes and altarpieces were painted by Franz Anton Maulbertsch and colleagues, while the “black” altars were made by Jacob Mollinarolo. The cathedral is a place of dual pilgrimage: many come to visit the devotional picture of the Virgin Mary which was brought to safety in Győr from Ireland and which shed tears of blood in 1697 as well as the grave of Bishop Vilmos Apor, who was martyred in 1945. In 1996, Pope John Paul II also prayed before the devotional picture of Mary and at Apor’s grave. The Pope beatified Bishop Vilmos in 1997 and raised the Győr Cathedral to the status of minor basilica. The city-centre Way of the Cross begins from the basilica and ends here. It was created in 2019 with the work of contemporary artists and includes seven reliefs, two graphics and five paintings. The 14 stations clad in glass-concrete frames can be found on the walls of buildings or on free-standing frames. (Győr’s devotional picture of the Virgin Mary and the St Ladislaus reliquary are listed as county treasures in the Győr-Moson-Sopron County Values Registry.)
The church consecrated by Bishop Vilmos Apor in 1943 was designed by Nándor Körmendy. The facade above the entrance is decorated with ceramics by Margit Kovács. There are two mosaics (St Anthony and St Teresa) and two paintings (St Joseph and St Philomena) in the vestibule. The entire wall surface of the church’s interior is covered with a polymorphic series of paintings by Istán Szőnyi. Six fresco scenes entitled “Christ triumphs in the world church” can be seen in the sanctuary. Three fresco secco scenes entitled “Hungarian church prays and works / our past, present and future” is featured on the nave’s huge wall. The holy church’s door is decorated with a relief of the Good Shepherd lifting the lost lamb onto his shoulder (Antal Borsa’s work). The sanctuary’s mosaic floor depicts, on the one hand, historical and 20th Győr’s building, industry and trade and on the other, the signs of the zodiac which come around again every year; reminding mortal man of the eternal God, who is above time (Géza Főnyi’s work). The relief on the altar of St Emeric was created by Miklós Borsos. There is a mosaic by János Pleidel on the baptismal chapel wall. Goldsmith artist Bandi Schima captures the baptismal scene on the chapel’s iron door.
Baron Rezső Kruchina hung a painting depicting Mary with the Baby Jesus on a tree in the Kiskút grove in 1928. He prayed here for his seriously ill son, then he added a sign with the words “Mary has helped” in thanks for his healing. In 1938, the respect for this picture in a chapel recess spread and the number of signs of thanks grew further. In the summer of 1947, the picture was torn from its frame, ripped in half and slashed. The culprit was caught, who (according to the official report) had been commissioned to do it for 30 forints by a stranger sitting in a car with Viennese plates. The whole diocese clubbed together to construct a home to safeguard the picture. Worshippers from Győr making pilgrimage to the September Osli indulgence pilgrimage collected donations for the chapel’s design. Sándor Schneider was then commissioned realise this. On 12 October, the restored picture was accompanied back to Kiskút by ten thousand people, each with a brick in their hands, led by Bishop Kálmán Papp. Many more people joined the crowd with even more building materials. The construction was done by voluntary work. The chapel’s foundation stone was laid by Jesuit Missionary Bishop, Miklós Szarvas, on 23 May 1948. The sanctuary of the pilgrimage chapel built in honour of the Helping Virgin Mary is open to the front and continues into nature. There is also a curved, branched, covered arcade opening to the left and right of the nave shaped by two arms. There is a St Joseph picture column transformed from the former chapel standing behind the building.
The first church in Újváros was the Salvator (Divine Saviour) Chapel built in 1965, which stood on the site of today’s Synagogue. The second was St Joseph’s Church, which stood on the site of today’s church. This originally Evangelical Church came into the ownership of the Catholics in 1749. As this then proved too small, the current church was built in Neoclassical style between 1836 and 1841 according the plans of Antal Fruhmann. The coat of arms of the city of Győr, which built the church, is located above the high altar. It is Győr’s second largest church, with a floorspace of 660 m2. In the high altarpiece depicting the scene on the mountain of the “Lord’s Transfiguration”, Jesus shows his divinity to three apostles (Peter, James and John), so that his persecuted disciples can also draw strength from this later. A statue of St Stephen, the patron saint of Győr, stands next the high altar. The organ, which was made in Bratislava, was brought by boat to Győr in 1854. The St Joseph side altar, made in 1896, can be found in the right-hand series of chapels.
The Ursuline nuns, led by Mary Alexia, began operations in Győr in 1726. St Anne’s Church was built in 1762 as a convent and school. The Baroque building complex, complete with a church parallel to the street front, is decorated with tiny ridge turrets. The three ceiling frescoes are the work of István Schaller. The picture above the sanctuary shows Mary’s betrothal. The cupola’s fresco depicts scenes from the lives of four saints (Ursula, Angela, Ignatius and Gregory) around Christ. The picture above the gallery shows the patron saint of musicians, St Cecilia, making music. Since 1908, an image of St Anne can be seen among the Baroque high altar’s original statues. The Ursuline school in Győr functioned from its foundation in 1726 until its nationalisation in 1948. The nuns were taken away during the night of 18 June 1950. The church remained a place of worship even during its time of dissolution, but its bell was only heard again in 1993 (after 43 years of enforced silence). The convent and school were then returned to the order too.
The church was constructed next to the decrepit alms-house for German citizens, the so-called German Spital in 1746 in honour of the Holy Trinity thanks to the Cecilia Wagner (widow of Haberle Farkas) Foundation. The richly carved altar is one of Győr’s most beautiful Rococo monuments. The altarpiece between the statues of St John of Nepomuk and St Nicholas was probably painted by István Schaller. The statue of the Virgin Mary on the lateral wall is a copy of the Virgin Mary statue in Mariazell (its back bears the corroborating seal from the famous Austrian shrine and the date 1766). Remarkable Baroque works include framed oil paintings depicting St Joseph, St John the Baptist and St Francis of Borgia.
György Széchenyi, Bishop of Győr, established a foundation in 1666 to create and maintain homes for elderly Hungarian citizens. The Hungarian Spital Church was built near this in 1735. It was designed by Márton Wittwer, a Carmelite monk. The Baroque church tower was not built onto the facade, rather next to the sanctuary. The church was originally built in honour of St Elisabeth, but St Anne’s picture took its place on the high altar later. St Joseph stands on the left-hand side of the picture while a gilded wooden statue of St Joachim stands on the right. Angels stand at the top of the outer columns of the altar’s superstructure, there are seated statues of the Son of God and God the Father on the inner chapiters while the symbol of the Holy Spirit (statue of a dove) can be found in front of the round window’s stained glass. The side altar’s picture of St Elisabeth, painted around 1740, is flanked on its two sides by gilded wooden statues of St John of Nepomuk and Bishop St Nicholas. There is an oil painting depicting St Martin on the upper part of the altar; below this, there is a glass cabinet containing a statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague.