The Hungarian Pauline Order is the only medieval order founded in Hungary. Eusebius, Canon of Esztergom and later founder of the order, often met with hermits living in the Pilis and in 1246, he resigned from his duties and, with the permission of the Archbishop, also went to live in the Pilis. There, he gathered the hermits together and founded the “First Hermit St Paul Brothers”, making the Hermit St Paul the patron of his namesake order. They built a church and founded a monastery in honour of the Holy Cross under the former hermits’ caves. The 26-metre-long Gothic church was 8 metres wide. The church and monastery were surrounded by a wide perimeter wall, and burials took place in the church. The headquarters of the Order from 1250 to 1304 was Klastrompuszta.Traditionally, every mid-September, a memorial mass commemorating the founders is held on the ruins of the monastery’s church. At this time, the ruins of the former monastery become the centre of the Pauline order once again as visitors from all parts of the country come to commemorate the founders.
The building known as the Rác (Serb) Church by the locals is a monument adorning the city’s main street. Until 1910 the Serb Orthodox and now the Greek Catholic church, this was once the site of the Johannite hospice and then some small churches. In the 1700s, the Serbs built a new stone church in honour of St Michael and Archangel St Gabriel. The Baroque-style church is a building with a tower on its facade and a single nave, set back from the street. The icons were made in 16th and 17th century Balkan and Byzantine style, the frieze with apostles dates back to 1740. After Esztergom’s Serbian population died out, the church’s furnishings and its rare so-called low-iconostasis became part of the Serbian Ecclesiastical Art and Science Museum in Szentendre. The building complex came into the possession of the Greek Catholic Church in 2000 and has since been beautifully renovated. There are 18th century tombs and crosses standing near the church.In the basement, you can see the remains of the former Johannite church. Address: 2500Esztergom, Kossuth u. 60.Kermesse (patronal festival): 11 August Further information: (33) 631-681, 30/3166345 kapcsolat@gorkatesztergom.hu
The one-towered church, also known as the Old Church, was built between 1757 and 1762. It has an incredibly beautiful oak door and carved benches. After the basilica, it is the second largest church in Esztergom and the third largest in the county. Its tower is 70 metres high. Its predecessor was the parish of St Peter, which was already mentioned 1294. In 1756 Buda master builder Ignác Oratsek was entrusted with the construction of the church. Prince-Primate Ferenc Barkóczy consecrated the huge, monumental, Baroque church in 1762. The approximately 990 m2 building has been the scene of significant religious events in the city. Its furnishings have been continuously enriched over time. The high altarpiece is the work of János Vaszary. The St John of Nepomuk statue located in the church’s curtain is a monument dating from the 18th century. The chaplain of the monument was, for a short time, Ottokár Prohászka.The parish offers accommodation possibilities for pilgrims. Address: 2500 Esztergom, Deák Ferenc u. 12. Further information: Parish2500 Esztergom, IV. Béla király u. 3.20/775-2841, 33/898-124sztpeterespal@egomnet.huhttp://belvarosiesztergom.hu
St Anne’s Church and Monastery are the city’s earliest Baroque architectural monuments.The Franciscan church was partly built on the remains of an earlier church named after the medieval Helping Virgin Mary. The Franciscan order was already present in Esztergom in the 1220s, before the death of St Francis of Assisi. King Béla IV was buried in the church they built. Construction work on a new church, still standing today, to replace the earlier destroyed building began in 1700. It only gained its current form, however, in 1886 when its tower was built. There are three statues of saints in the statue niches on its facade: St Francis of Assisi, St Anne with the baby Mary and St Anthony of Padua. The church was completely renovated in 1989-1990 and the monastery underwent continuous expansion and renovation until 1999. The latter building houses the Ladislaus Pelbárt of Timişoara Franciscan Grammar School and Boarding School.Address: 2500 Esztergom, Bottyán J. u. 10.Kermesse (patronal festival): 26 JuneAdoration: 28 March and 7 December Further information:Parish2500 Esztergom, Bottyán János u. 10.(33) 510-290, 414-300/124esztergom-lelk@ofm.huhttp://franka-egom.ofm.hu
Szenttamás (St Thomas) is one of the districts of Esztergom. It was an independent community prior to 1895 and took its name from Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. A thermal bath was established by Queen Anne of Antioch at the thermal springs rising from the foot of St Thomas Hill to the north of old Esztergom. This was probably the first public bath in Hungary.A Baroque-style Calvary leads to the chapel on the top of St Thomas Hill. The six-station way’s buildings consist of coloured reliefs carved in stone and coloured wooden sculptures. The Baroque-style Calvary was built in 1781 while the Classicist Calvary chapel was built in 1823. The 41m2 chapel, which houses a relic of St Thomas, was built by János Benyovszky, titular bishop and cannon, in the honour of Our Lady of the Sorrows. The wooden-columned, rectangular chapel with triangulate vaulting has a small tower on its facade. The monumental Calvary statue group in front of it dates from 1781 and stood on Castle Hill before the basilica was built. Address: Esztergom-SzenttamáshegyKermesse (patronal festival): 15 SeptemberFurther information: Parish2500 Esztergom, Mindszenty tér 3.33/413-878vizivaros@egomnet.hu
The Víziváros parish church is located on Mindszenty tér, the main square of Víziváros (Watertown), next to the Primate’s Palace. Built in the first half of the 18th century by the Jesuits in the honour of St Ignatius of Loyola, the Baroque church served temporarily as a cathedral between 1820 and 1856.The listed church is a significant memorial to Hungarian Baroque architecture originating from Italy. The forward-curved facade is straddled by two towers and there is a statue of St Ignatius of Loyola at the top of the arched gable. The church has a single nave and a floor area of 399 m²; the nave and sanctuary have surbased spherical vaulting. The main altarpiece dates from 1737 and is the work of Martino Altomonte; it depicts the glorification and miracles of St Ignatius. There is a listed statue of Mary opposite the church’s entrance, which was created in 1740 to commemorate the previous year’s plague.
The Esztergom Basilica is the largest church in Hungary. The emblematic building on Castle Hill in Esztergom, the great cathedral known informally as the Esztergom Basilica, is Hungary’s highest ranking church. The inscription on the main facade, CAPUT, MATER ET MAGISTRA ECCLESIARUM HUNGARIAE, also refers to this: Head, Mother and Teacher of the Hungarian Churches. The 100-metre-high basilica was built between 1822 and 1869 and its consecration took place in 1856. It also houses the world’s largest altarpiece painted on canvas. The cathedral’s crypt is the eternal burial site of the Archbishops of Esztergom. Sándor Rudnay, who began construction of the ecclesiastical church complex rests here, but there are also medieval and early-modern tombs belonging to the former cathedral. János Vitéz (John Vitéz de Zredna), King Matthias’s educator and chancellor, was also returned here as well as the tomb of Cardinal Archbishop Dénes Széchy, who crowned three kings.The collection of liturgical gold and textile objects on the first floor of the basilica represents outstanding artistic and cultural history and is considered something special in Europe. The coronation oath cross has been preserved here for centuries and was used to swear in the kings of Hungary during their coronation ceremonies.The basilica’s left chapel is the 16th-century Bakócz Chapel, the pearl of Renaissance architecture in Hungary and the pilgrimage site of the Castle Madonna.
The name of the village can be found among the fishing villages listed in the Pannonhalma Abbey’s letter of foundation from 1001. Its first church was built following the Mongol invasion at the end of what is Kisvág Street today. Famous son of the village, warrior of the marches, painter and songwriter Ferenc Watthay (1568-1609) was buried in its crypt. A new church was built in 1828 to replace the church that was destroyed during the Turkish occupation. The Gothic stone emblem above the entrance is probably from the old church. A statue of St James the Apostle stands on the main altar. The frescoes were painted by József Horváth, the organ was built by József Kemenes and the seven stained-glass windows created by József Palka. There is a Baroque stone statue of St John of Nepomuk (1770), a columnar, multi-figure Holy Trinity statue (1903) and a statue of St Stephen the King (2010) in the churchyard.The agricultural and animal husbandry parish had two votive holidays: 8 June (St Medardus’s Day) in the hope of protection against hail and 13 June (St Anthony of Padua’s Day) to avoid losing cattle.
The 18th-century Baroque church was expanded in 1873 with the addition of a transept and a new sanctuary. The image on the neo-Gothic high altar, the work of Mihály Kovács, created in 1883, depicts the mystical betrothment of St Catherine. Two Rococo works (The Good Shepherd and St Wendel) should be highlighted among the sculptures. The reliefs on the pulpit represent the four evangelists and Jesus the Sower, while there are vignettes of the saints of the House of Árpád (Stephen, Ladislaus, Elizabeth and Margaret) on the ceiling.It’s worth taking a look at the medieval church in the village of Felszopor a kilometre and a half away which houses an altarpiece depicting the Ascension of Jesus.
The history of the Lutheran congregation in Tét goes back to the mid-1500s. A church with wattle-and-daub walls stood in the centre of the village, but burnt down in 1774 (a stumpy stone tower was erected in its place in 1800, which was converted in 1835 into today’s tall bell tower. The present Baroque church was built on a new site, with the permission of Maria Theresa. Larch piles were hammered into the ground to reinforce its foundations. The foundation stone was laid in in 1778 and construction was completed in 1780. Lutherans from Győr also travelled here to attend mass until their church was constructed in 1785. The church’s interior has an unusual layout, as the altar and the pulpit are situated on the longitudinal wall. The red marble baptismal font was made in 1868 while the organ was built in 1910. The coat-of-arms which can be seen at the beginning of the pews is in honour of the Zmeskál family who worked for the congregation.
In 1715, Christian Ailert, an imperial officer injured in battle, turning to God to be healed, requested the intercession of St Anthony of Padua. The voice of Our Lady came to him in a dream and told him to visit a spring on the edge of Tét and to bathe in it. The officer washed in the spring’s water and was healed. Out of gratitude, he had a chapel built above the spring, in which he placed a copy of a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This miraculous recovery made the spring famous, drawing thousands of pilgrims to pray here in the hope of being healed.In 1744, a Baroque church was built in honour of St Anthony of Padua on the site of the chapel. Its sanctuary has a round-arched ceiling. The miracle-working spring is directly behind the altar. There are two pictures on the main altar: St Anthony of Padua above and Our Lady of Perpetual Help below. A depiction of the birth of the Virgin Mary can be seen in the church’s nave. In 2003, the church gained benches in the churchyard and a people’s altar, so that Holy Mass can be held here on the saint’s day. The statue of Mary next to the churchyard’s open-air altar was erected by Tét worshippers in 1896. Two saints’ days are celebrated each year in Tétszentkút: that of St Anthony of Padua on the Sunday closest to 13 June and that of the Virgin Mary on the weekend closest to 12 September.
The church standing on the so-called Lord’s Hill not far from the centre of the village was built in the 1800s while its two-belled tower was added in 1925. A praying Jesus, angel holding a chalice and sleeping apostles are depicted on the altarpiece of the simple church.There is a biblical quote painted on an old round plaque embellishing the pulpit. The small congregation takes care of the church and its surrounding buildings. One of these functioned as a denominational school before World War II.
The Baroque church built in 1753 was later rebuilt in a Romanticist style. Its facade is endowed with a two-stage steepled tower. Its flat-ceilinged nave is separated from the sanctuary by a chancel arch. The sanctuary’s rear wall is covered with a fresco imitating a neo-Gothic altar structure. In the middle of the work created by the Austrian painter Flösch, there is an image depicting the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth, while St Benedict and St Martin stand on the two sides. Of particular note among the church’s treasures are the Stations of the Cross, the modern organ, the ornately carved baptismal font and the ceiling fresco symbolising God the Father.There is a Baroque statue of St John of Nepomuk from 1780, a stone cross and a monument to the Holy Crown.
There are various protected monumental statues in the village. The oldest of them is the Baroque Holy Trinity column on Rába Square, erected in 1691. It was erected thanks to György Niczky, who played a key role in the rebuilding of Mihályi during the ravages of the Turks and then the Rákóczi War of Independence. He also had the Baroque statue of St John of Nepomuk erected in 1738 next to the bridge over the Small Rába. There are also two statues of Mary in the churchyard: the “Queen of Heaven” carved in 1700 and the extraordinarily beautiful “Immaculata” created in 1780.Mary Magdalene and St Peter are depicted in relief on the bottom part of the stone cross erected in 1763 in the cemetery. There are also several monumental tombs, richly decorated with statues and reliefs, that were constructed at the beginning of the 1800s.
The church was built in 1936, originally as a Lutheran school. Two years later, in 1938, a three-storied bell tower with clock was added. The school building was also used as a prayer house. It was renovated in 1989-90 and then converted to a church. It was insulated and its exterior renovated in 2010-2012, while, at the same time, its sign stating “People’s education” was returned to the wall. There is a Jesus altarpiece and also a picture depicting Martin Luther in the simple church.
It was documented in the 14th century as St George’s Church, but in 1700, only its walls were mentioned. It was rebuilt in 1712 in Baroque style and extended in 1757 with two side aisles. An interesting feature of the tower is the four angel statues at the corners of the steeple.The rimmed Rococo high altar was made around 1750 and boasts a double pedestal. There is a Baroque statue depicting four saints between the Corinthian columns. A statue of St George stands above the three-piece cornice. On its pediment, angels are holding the Niczky family’s coat-of-arms. The high altar’s lower picture depicts the Holy Trinity and the crowning of the Virgin Mary as she is received into heaven while the upper one depicts St Michael triumphing over Satan. The side altar is decorated with nine Baroque statues dating from 1760. The marble baptismal font and the Rococo carving above it date from around 1750. The Rococo Easter candelabra also dates from this time.The sweeping frescoes reminiscent of Baroque style and the images of the copper-embossed station series were created at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a rock chapel in the church as well as some old armoried tombs.
Legend has it that, in 1529, the Turks affixed their crescent flag over the church built in the second half of the 13th century. Following the Reformation, the Lutherans used the church until 1673. The Árpád-era church preserves its Romanesque and Gothic details till this day: its semi-circular apse, the lancet windows on its southern facade and its stone-framed door. The church gained a new tower in 1658. It was rebuilt in Baroque style at the end of the 18th century and was reinforced with buttresses so that its walls could support its barrel-vault.When entering through the spiked door, visitors are greeted by the contrast of the brilliant white and the deep blue of the sanctuary. The sanctuary’s main painting was created in 1893. The church’s namesake apostles, Peter and Paul, are depicted in the fresco underneath the Holy Trinity. The gospel scene carved on the Baroque pulpit depicts the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The two framed “Christmas” paintings (the adoration of the shepherds and the worship of the three kings) are also Baroque works. Even older works are copies of the Mariazell devotional statue of the Virgin Mary.
The first mention of Beled’s church dates from 1308. Today’s parish church dedicated to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built thanks to the support of its patrons, the Cziráky and Esterházy families, on the site of the previous old church which had burnt down. The floorspace of the church built between 1861 and 1863 is 540 m2 while its tower is 28m high. The facade of the single-naved, late Classicist building is Romanticist while its tower is built in neo-Gothic style.The high altar’s altarpiece depicts the new-born Mary in the arms of her father, St Joachim, with her mother, St Anne, next to him. Statues of St Anthony and St John of Nepomuk stand on the two sides of the high altar. The paintings on the side altars depict the “Annunciation scene and St Joseph. The interior’s oldest ornament is the Baroque statue of the Madonna. The organ was made in Vienna in 1864, and the three bells were cast by the Seltenhofer dynasty in Sopron.A cholera epidemic devastated the Rábaköz in 1855. After it had receded, the Beled worshippers erected a Mary column in the churchyard out of gratitude.
A Roman Catholic church, built in 1377 in Gothic style, expanded in the 17th century and rebuilt in Baroque style at the beginning of the 18th century (its vaulting gained stucco decoration at this time). The sanctuary was restored in Gothic style in 1877, with an archaic Madonna statue from the 14th century. The church’s interior is appointed in Baroque style.
The church and its parish were first mentioned in a 1332 papal decree. The parish’s re-independence (Záhorská Bystrica was a branch of Stupava for a time) was linked to the settlement of the Croatian ethnic minority. The church’s construction in 1534 can also be explained by the rapid growth in population. The St Peter’s Chapel was converted into a larger church, and its patronage was extended to St Paul. The construction of a new, large-scale parish church began at the end of the 18th century. This was consecrated by the suffragan bishop of Esztergom in 1834. The Church of the Apostles St Peter and St Paul is a single-naved building with Baroque and Classicist style marks, enclosed by a rectangular apse. The nave is 20.8 metres long, 10.7 metres wide, with three Prussian mitred vaulting panes forming the roof, whose beam structure is supported by double pilasters topped with corniced chapiters while the corners rest upon broken pillar chapiters. The gallery built along the western wall of the church’s nave is supported by two columns. The nave’s interior is illuminated by six large windows while there are four stained-glass windows in the apse. The apse is 10.46 metres long, 8.3 metres side and 15 metres high and its floor is one step higher than the nave. The floor of the church’s interior is covered by obliquely laid, square split-stone slabs. The defining elements of the central, gilded tabernacle of the altar are wooden carvings depicting the apostles St Peter and St Paul. There is a statue of St Wendel on the left and one of St Florian on the right. The relief depicting the events of the life of the Virgin Mary on both sides of the tabernacle and the reliefs below the altar stone depicting the High Priest Melchizedek and his son Isaac offering up their sacrifice to Abraham also merit attention. The pulpit dating from 1927 is located on the left side of the chancel arch. This is the work of the Tyrolean Master Rungaldier and depicts the four evangelists along with their attributes.