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.)
At the request of the Gönyű Lutheran diaspora and the Reformed sub-congregation of Bőny, the Lutheran congregation of Győr and the Reformed congregation of Bőny had a joint church built for the two denominations in Gönyű, which was consecrated at Whitsun 2005. The building itself demonstrates the traditions of Protestant church architecture and modern architectural features. Its style reflects the intimate atmosphere of the churches of Transylvanian villages.The furnishing of the church’s open-plan interior is a worthy servant of the Protestant liturgy. The rich, so-called handmade ’written embroidery’ is a tribute to the work of the women in the religious community. The pulpit is decorated with carved symbols. In addition to their own celebrations, the two communities also gladly seek ecumenical co-existence. “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11).Gönyű has its own special Advent tradition - one window of small houses on the fences of 24 families is opened every morning until Christmas. The first window of each is opened in the Reformed Lutheran Church, while the last is opened in the Catholic Church. Visiting the 24 small houses hidden among the streets makes a lovely festive tour.
Built in Late-Baroque style based on the plans of Jakab Fellner, the church was consecrated in 1795. The altarpiece, painted in 1796, depicts the meeting of the apostles St Peter and St Paul. Baroque statues of the kings St Stephen and St Ladislaus stand next to it. The pulpit, with the Good Shepherd on its sounding board and a relief of the Sower on its side, is a valuable work. The neo-Classical facade is a result of the 1878-80 renovation. A Latin plaque commemorating the renovation was added above the entrance. And when the church tower was renovated in 2004, a blessing for posterity from 1879 materialised. The livelihoods, i.e. harbour, water mills, fishing and shipping, of the inhabitants of the community on the bank of the Danube have been provided by its great river for centuries. The pictures on the boatman’s flag, held in great esteem by the village, depict the guardians of those “travelling by water”. On one of the flag’s pictures, Jesus extends his hand to Peter, the sceptic who is almost immersed by the waves. The flag’s second picture depicts Bishop Nicholas as patron saint of sailors and children. A cheerful tradition is the end-of-winter mass when worshippers following the boatman’s flag circle the altar and put their donations in a basket. The money was once used to help ill boatmen and their widows and orphans.
The church was built between 1728 and 1735 at the behest of György Széchényi and his son Zsigmond. Two towers enclose the high facade of the wooden-tiled, Baroque church. The towers’ clocks were made by Viennese József Kőnig. The Széchényi coat-of-arms is visible in the middle of the facade. The pediment bears statues of St Joseph, St John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary, while there are statues of St Anna and St John of Nepomuk in front of the church. The richly carved pulpit is one particularly beautiful piece of its original 18th-century furnishings. There are statues on the three altars and the walls, whereas paintings adorn the oratory and the choir’s balustrade. The canopied side altar of St Peregrine, the patron saint of those suffering from foot ailments, is very interesting. There is a rare depiction of Christ on the wall: raising his crucified right side from the cross for a blessing. The two towers had six bells in total. Legend has it that one bell was dug up by a bull from the mud of Lake Fertő. In 1736, Mária Barkóczy, wife of Zsigmond Széchényi raised two small mounds on both sides of the church and erected a crucifix on one side and a statue of Jesus on the other. Over time, both have been expanded into multi-figure statue groups with ornamental gates, steps and fences.
The first church of the fishing village on the bank of the Ikva was erected in the honour of Bishop St Nicholas. The small Baroque part of today’s church was built onto the medieval church in 1725. Its facade is decorated with a statue of the Virgin Mary. The orb of its steeple’s cross contains one of the cannonballs from the 1691 Battle of Szalánkemén (Slankamen). Above the twisted pillars of the high altar, angels lift the figure of Mary towards Heaven and the Holy Trinity. Between the pillars, next to the kneeling figure of St Nicholas, there are three children pressed together in a tub in reference to one of the saint’s legends. Statues of saints (John the Baptist, Joseph, Sebastian, Florian, Peter and Paul) stand next to the pillars. The sanctuary window depicts St George the Dragon Slayer.A new large church was built onto this small church in 1935, such that the old church serves as the vestibule to the new one. The backbone of the new church is adorned with a “ridge turret”. Its high altar is made of Fertőrákos sandstone and the old church’s two 18th-century side altars also found their way here.The main figure on the Immaculate Conception Altar is the Virgin Mary. Above it, there is a painting of the Dove of the Holy Spirit, whereas her parents, Joachim and Anna stand next to it. Below, Old Testament saints are closed behind bars waiting for their deliverance.The Mary Magdalen of the Holy Cross Altar is wiping crucified Jesus’s feet with her hair. Below, sufferers in Purgatory are awaiting their redemption amongst the flames.The sanctuary and the ceiling’s frescoes were created by József Samodai in 1964-1965.There is the Esterházy coat-of-arms and a statue of St Nicholas on the pulpit’s sounding board and statues of Christ and the Evangelists on its balustrade.
There was already a fortified manor house on the bishopric of Győr’s Fertőrákos estate in the 14th century. King Matthias stayed here many times between 1481 and 1486 as guest of Bishop Orbán Dóczy (who the king also appointed bishop of the occupied Austrian territory after his occupation of Vienna).In 1594, when Győr fell into the hands of the Turks, the summer residence now expanded into a palace became the centre of the bishopric. After the Turkish ravishes of 1683, the conversion of the palace to Baroque-Rococo began. The coats-of-arms of György Széchényi, Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz and Ferenc Zichy, who commissioned the works which took until the mid-18th century, adorn the main facade.The ceiling of the upstairs dining room is decorated with a fresco capturing the “triumph of Faith”. There are plaster stucco decorations as well as pictures depicting scenes from Greek mythology and the Bible on the walls of several rooms. The remaining Rococo stoves were made by Károly Magner, a master craftsman from Győr. Bishop János Simor established the first glass-painting workshop in Hungary here, which was in operation until 1867.The palace’s vaulting features an allegorical fresco and its altarpiece depicts the coronation of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity. There was once an ornamental garden with fountains around the palace and in front of its facade. Two huge vaulted cellars extend beneath the building. Legend has it that the passage starting from one, fallen in today, may have led to the forest beyond the stream or all the way to Sopron.
When Lake Fertő dried up in 1869, the Rákos villagers went on foot to the Moson County pilgrimage site Boldogasszony on the other side of the lake to pray for the water to return to its bed. The chapel was built in 1872 on the outskirts of Fertőrákos, in the area of Virágos-major, for the servants living there and consecrated in honour of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There is some Latin text on the tower referring to Mary: “Ego sum flos campi”, that is “I am the flower of the meadows”. The tiny building was renovated in 1992 and restored to its original beauty.
The Small Chapel, built in 1714, originally stood on a six-metre-high, probably artificial, mound at the edge of the village next to the Balf road. When Kisrákosi Street was built, a fisherman named Kamper applied for a piece of land in 1936 to build his home. He received the permit on condition that he move the Small Chapel to the village, rebuild it there from carved stones and erect a new statue on its former site. There is a statue of the Virgin Mary in the recess closed with a grille. Also known as the Fisherman’s Chapel, the building’s facade features a stone cross as well as German text above its door. Four of the village’s many public works are outstanding: the Holy Trinity erected after the Turkish defeat in Vienna in 1683, the St Sebastian from 1721, the statues of St John of Nepomuk and St Michael erected in 1731 and 1643, respectively. There is a statue of St Donat standing on a four-metre-high column on Kovács Hill.
György Széchényi Bishop of Győr had the old church demolished as well as rebuilt and expanded in 1662. He also had the building restored after it was destroyed by the Turks retreating from Vienna in 1683. The church with its ornate tower with a stone-balustraded balcony gained its present form in 1777. Its high altar, side altars, pulpit and Rococo pews were also created at that time. The two defining elements of the structure behind the main altar reflect the two consecrated names of the church, “dedicated to the name of St Nicholas and Our Lord’s Ascension”. These are the gilded statue of the eponymous bishop above it and the painting depicting Jesus ascending to heaven below it. The monumental composition also includes the Zichy coat-of-arms above the picture as well as the statues of King St Stephen and St Emeric standing guard on both sides. The altar itself is comprised of entirely gold-clad carving: the tabernacle door is a relief depicting Abraham’s sacrifice of his son, the angels and the Lamb sitting on the seven-sealed book. The pulpit’s reliefs, also gilded, depict the baptism of Jesus, the selection of the apostles and the scene of the Sermon on the Mount. There is a small statue of Jesus and John the Baptist on the cover of the 17th-century painted stone baptismal font. The five-piece Baroque organ was donated by Bishop Christian August of Saxe-Zeitz (the first prince-primate of Hungary). There is a Baroque painting depicting the coronation of the Virgin Mary and the Trinity on the side wall of the sanctuary. A picture of St Cayetan giving thanks for the end of the plague hangs below the window on the north wall. As well as this popular saint of the time, the work also includes a German-language prayer and the exact date (7 December 1713). The plaques above the Stations of the Cross invoke Jesus’s memorable meals: the first is the wedding at Cana, the second the feast in the house of Simon the Pharisee, the third the Last Supper and the fourth picture the moment of breaking bread that opened the eyes of the disciples in Emmaus.
The settlement was already mentioned under the name of Endréd in a 1348 charter. Its old church burnt down several times, its tower was struck by lightning and by 1893, it was in such bad condition that it had to be demolished.The present one-naved church with one tower was built in neo-Romanesque style and was consecrated on 20 August 1908 by Count Miklós Széchenyi, ordained Bishop of Győr County. Its interior furnishings (the carved altars, pulpit, baptismal font, candlestick, holy grave, mass-book holders and pews) were made in the workshop of Győr sculptor Márton Kelemen. The windows of the sanctuary are adorned with glass images of St Ladislaus and St Emeric. The paintings on the walls are by József Samodai. Its tower houses three bells. The small 90-kg bell was made in 1863 in Frigyes Seltenhofer’s Sopron workshop. In 1922, the “A”-toned, 416-kg great bell was also cast in Sopron, whereas the 220-kg bell, consecrated in 2007, was produced by Titusz Farkas of Monor.
There is a statue of the Our Lady of the Sorrows created in 1930 next to the church while a group of three statues (Mary, St Stephen and St Emeric) have stood in the southern part of the village since 1884. Based on the festooned ornamentation of its pillar, the Holy Trinity statue located near the Highway 85 intersection may be a late-18th-century work. Also next to the main road is a Wolfinger Cross (a crucifix with a statue of the Virgin Mary and St John next to it) created in 1869.The village is the birthplace of Kálmán Hadarics (1895-1981), who was Abbot of Zirc from 1939 with the monastic name of Wendel Endrédy. He is associated with the renewal of the Hungarian Cistercian order and its spiritual, intellectual and economic revival. He hid many persecuted people at the end of World War II and received 500 nuns into the Zirc convent at the time of the dissolution of the monastic orders. He was arrested in 1950 and, after eight months of inhuman torture, was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment. An exhibition in his memory is displayed in the Fertőndréd parsonage
The chapel was primarily used by the ducal family; however, until Eszterháza had its own ministry, the villagers also attended holy mass here. The chapel is located in the castle’s main building. It is accessible from the courtyard, the duke’s apartments and the royal tract. The oval, marble-wainscoted hall is connected to galleries both on the first floor and on the ground floor.The ceiling fresco created by Joseph Ignatz Mildorfer depicts St Stephen offering the country to the Virgin Mary. The stucco frames were designed by Johann Michael Reiff. The original altarpiece, destroyed around 1945, depicted St Anthony of Padua. The current altarpiece immortalises Jesus’s heavenly mission and is the work of Felix Leicher. The sacristy and organ room open from the ground floor, while the ducal oratory and choir are on the first floor. The chapel can be visited during the castle’s opening hours.
The foundations of Süttör’s first 12th-century church were found in 1906 in Jakabsziget at the edge of the village. The area was probably abandoned due to flooding from Lake Fertő. The Baroque church was built in 1732 on the site of the current church. It was demolished in 1889 and a new one was already constructed that year. The building, designed by Viennese Lajos Zatzka, is modelled on northern German Gothic churches. The facade has ridge turrets on each corner and a tall tower jutting out from its middle. The panes above its three doors are decorated with mosaic images (Mary, Jesus and Joseph). The marble plaque next to the Joseph door commemorates the priest and poet Mihály Mentes (1891-1960), who was born in Süttör. He also wrote, for example, the words for the hymn beginning “God, for our fatherland kneel down we in front of You”. The church’s neo-Gothic furnishings were made in 1889. The main altar bears statues of St Andrew and the Holy Kings of the Árpád House. The side altars were erected in honour of Jesus’s Heart and the Blessed Virgin. The organ was made in 1935 at the Rieger factory in Budapest. Many prominent figures, including Pope John Paul II, József Mindszenti and Vilmos Apor (also 20th-century confessors), are depicted in the images on the side walls and the ceiling.
Kajar was first mentioned in a charter from 1037, when King St Stephen bestowed the village on the Bakonybél Abbey. The church was built in Baroque style between 1797 and 1880, boasting a single nave, mitred vaulting and an organ gallery as well as a flat-ceilinged sanctuary. The tower rising from the flatness of the facade (similar to the Benedictine churches of neighbouring villages) has a so-called “hen-roost-roof” design and a shingle roof. The Empire-style unusually coloured high altar and pulpit as well as the neo-Classical and late-Baroque-style pews are probably the same age as the church. The high altar picture depicting the Holy Trinity was painted by József Schmidt in 1799. The fresco on the sanctuary ceiling depicts the Lamb of God, the four evangelists and the Benedictine monastery at Bakonybél.
The Turkish destroyed the Evangelical oratory in the church in 1683. Then a wattle church was built, which burnt down in 1727. The church raised in its place was consecrated in 1730. A new, larger stone church was built in Baroque style in 1788, following the Tolerance Edict. The church’s interior was completed in 1794. The two-sided gallery, with stone legs and a coffered front wall, and the ceiling are both made of wood. The old pulpit was demolished in 1913 and replaced with a new one. The church organ was also made at that time. The church has been renovated several times over the last sixty years and the conversion of the organ to a mechanical one has been completed. The names of those who died in the two world wars can be found on the memorial plaques on the wall. There is also a memorial plaque in honour of the preacher, János Szentmiklós, who was held captive for his faith between 1774 and 1776. In 2017, on the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation, a plaque immortalising the names of all the ministers serving the congregation since 1609 was added to the wall of the parvis.
The church, which was consecrated in 1869, was built on the site of the old, wooden-towered church, presumably by extending it. The top of the tower, which rises from the Romanticist-style facade, is adorned with a double cross. The exceptionally beautiful Baroque high altar probably came to Jobaháza from a monastic church. There are four gilded statues of saints – Peter and Paul the Apostles and two unknown saints – between the columns of the three-level altar structure dating from around 1750. There are two carved angels holding crowns raised in glory, with statues of St Barbara and St Agatha beside them. Small statues of St Jude and St Joseph stand on either side of the altar. The Rococo pulpit was made in the second half of the 18th century. In the churchyard, there is a statue of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus in her arms, erected in 1870 on a pillar, as well as a stone cross made in 1938 “to commemorate the Eucharistic Holy Year”. (Béla Bartók’s later collecting work began in June 1906 at Jobaháza, where he recorded 40 folk songs.)
The Mosonszentpéter Calvary Chapel was built in 1944n but was only consecrated in 1964. The chapel’s facade features a picture of Archangel St Michael. The reliefs of the Way of the Cross were made in a circle by Antal Borsa, a sculptor from Győr. The land and financial resources for the Calvary were provided by the Wachtler family from Szentpéter, in an effort to alleviate the intense pain of the loss of their adult children.