The Franciscan Church is the oldest surviving religious building in the Old Town of Bratislava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Patrick Comerford
Bratislava has more than 50 churches, cathedrals, chapels and places of worship. As I walked around the capital of Slovakia this week, I visited Saint Martin's Cathedral, one of the largest churches in Slovakia and the second most visited place in Bratislava.
However, I missed the Church of Saint Elizabeth, known locally as the ‘Blue Church’ and designed by the Hungarian architect Edmund Lechner.
The Franciscan Church is in front of the Arcadia Hotel, where I have been staying this week. This Gothic church, dating from the 13th century, is the oldest surviving religious building in the Old Town of Bratislava. It is said it was built by King Ladislaus IV of Hungary to commemorate his victory over King Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1278. It was built in the Gothic style and dedicated by King Andrew III of Hungary in 1297.
The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I was elected the King of Hungary in this church in 1526. During the coronation of the Habsburg emperors as Kings of Hungary in Bratislava, they used this church to knight nobles in the Order of the Golden Spur.
The church was damaged several times by fire and earthquake and only a small part of the original church still stands. It was refurbished in the Renaissance style in the 17th century and in the baroque style in the 18th century.
Inside the Franciscan church in Bratislava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The Chapel of Saint John the Evangelist, dating from the second half of the 14th century, is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Bratislava. This chapel, modelled after Sainte Chapelle in France, includes the crypt of the Jakubovec family.
The main altar is flanked by statues of Saint Stephen and Saint Emeric, dating from 1720-1730. Two side altars are dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Anthony of Padua. Other side altars are dedicated to the Nativity, Our Lady of Sorrows, Saint Anne and Saint Barbara.
The rococo pulpit, from 1756, is decorated with reliefs representing Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, Saint Francis talking to the birds, and Moses. The rood loft, built in 1670, is supported by Tuscan pillars and holds the organ.
Relics in the church include the body of Saint Reparat, a fourth century deacon who was martyred in Nola, near Naples, in 353, when his tongue was cut out and his right hand cut off. His body was moved from Rome to Bratislava in 1769.
The Ursuline Church stands on the site of the first mediaeval synagogue in Bratislava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The Ursuline Church, immediately east of the hotel, stands on the site of the first mediaeval synagogue in the city. This was a Protestant church until the 17th century, when the Ursuline nuns came from Vienna and Cologne to educate the daughters of local aristocrats and citizens.
The Jesuit Church beside the Old Town Hall first built as a Protestant church in the 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The Jesuit Church of the Holy Saviour Church, to the south of the Franciscan church and beside the Old Town Hall, is just three minutes walk from the hotel. This too was a Protestant church in the 17th century.
The church was built in 1636-1638 for the growing number of German-speaking Protestants in Bratislava. Because a royal edict decreed the church could not resemble a Roman Catholic church, it was built without a spire or presbytery and without a street entrance.
The Church of the Holy Trinity was built for the Trinitarian order in the 18th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The Church of the Holy Trinity was built in the baroque style in the 18th century for the Trinitarian order. Formally the Church of Saint John of Matha and Saint Felix of Valois, it stands on Župné Námestie Square.
The church was built on the site of the older Church of Saint Michael, demolished in 1529, along with the settlement of Saint Michael during the Ottoman wars, to reinforce the city defences against the attacking Turks.
The Trinitarian Order began building the church in 1717 and it was consecrated in 1727, although work in the interior continued throughout the first half of the 18th century. The church design was influenced by Saint Peter’s Church in Vienna.
The altarpiece depicts Saint John of Matha and Saint Felix of Valois ransoming prisoners from Turkish capture. The statues of Saint Agnes and Saint Catherine behind the main altar are attributed to the Bavarian sculptor Johann Baptist Straub.
When the Trinitarian Order was dissolved by the Emperor Joseph II in 1782, the monastery passed to the local government and became the administrative seat of the Pressburg county. The Great Hall was used for concerts by Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms, and later for the Slovak National Councils until they moved into a new parliamentary building beside Bratislava Castle.
Saint Stephen’s Capuchin Church has a simple beauty (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Saint Stephen’s Capuchin Church has a simple beauty. This church is dedicated to the first Hungarian king.
A Plague Pillar in front of the church, dating from 1723, is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
The Reformed Calvinist Church in Bratislava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The Reformed Calvinist Church is part of a church in Slovakia that has 110,000 members in 205 parishes, 103 mission churches and 59 house fellowships. Unlike other Reformed or Presbyterian churches, this church, in the Hungarian style, had a bishop.
The Calvinist Reformation reached this part of Slovakia in the 1520s and four presbyteries was formed in Eastern Slovakia, Later they were later protected by the Princes of Transylvania, and until World War I these parishes in Slovakia were part of the Reformed Church in Hungary. A theological seminary was founded in Lucenec in 1925, and the church adopted new constitutions in 1950s and after the fall of communism.
Saint Nicholas Church (left) seen from the ramparts of Bratislava Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
On my way down the hill from Bratislava Castle this week, I stopped to look at the locked Saint Nicholas Church, an Orthodox church built in 1661 by Countess Frances Khuen, the widow of Paul Pálffy (1589-1655), before she died 1672.
This early baroque church is simple, single nave church with a small wooden bell tower. It was built on the site of an earlier Gothic church dating back to the 11th century. After the castle area was incorporated into Bratislava, the church was administrated by a Catholic funeral society in Saint Martin's parish.
The church was no longer in use by 1936 when it was given to the Greek Catholic Church of Bratislava, an Orthodox-style church in communion with Rome. At the end of World War II in 1945, the church roof caught fire and the church was rebuilt by the Greek Catholic Church in 1945-1950. A violent persecution of the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia began in 1950 and the church was given to the Orthodox Church.
Inside the Jesuit church in the heart of the old city (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
08 November 2019
Saint Martin’s Cathedral
dominates the skyline in
the old town in Bratislava
Saint Martin’s Cathedral was built into the walled fortifications of the old town of Bratislava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Patrick Comerford
Saint Martin’s Cathedral in Bratislava stands at the western edge of the old city centre, beneath the slopes of Bratislava Castle, and its 85 metre spire dominates the skyline of the old town.
Saint Martin’s Cathedral is the largest and one of the oldest churches in Bratislava, and it was used as the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1563 to 1830.
Saint Martin’s Cathedral replaced an earlier chapel or church in the grounds of Bratislava Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Long before the cathedral was built, the site had been the crossroads in the old town centre, with a market and perhaps also a chapel.
At the time, the main centre of worship was a chapel in Bratislava Castle that was used by the provost and chapter of Bratislava. An earlier Moravian church built in the eight century was replaced by a second church dedicated to the Saviour, whose site is still marked out on the castle hill.
King Emeric of Hungary received permission from Pope Innocent II in 1204 to relocate the chapel and the church was built in 1221 in the Romanesque style and dedicated to the Holy Saviour.
Saint Martin’s Cathedral was consecrated in 1452 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
As Bratislava grew, the church became insufficient for its needs, and the building of a new, three-nave, Gothic cathedral began in 1311 on the site of an earlier church and cemetery. The church was built as part of the city walls, and its tower served as a defensive bastion in the mediaeval city fortifications.
The building project was delayed due to the location of the site and a lack of funding in the early 15th century, and it came to a halt during the Hussite Wars. The cathedral was finally completed and consecrated in 1452, although work continued into the 15th century.
The cathedral nave has three aisles divided by two rows of eight columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The cathedral is built in a traditional cruciform shape. The nave consists of three aisles divided by two rows of eight columns. The interior of the church is large – 69.37 metres long, 22.85 metres wide and 16.02 metres high.
The cathedral has four chapels: the canons’ chapel; the Gothic chapel of Queen Sophia of Bavaria, widow of the Czech King Wenceslas IV; the chapel of Saint Anne; and the baroque chapel of Saint John the Merciful, with the body of Saint John the Merciful, who died in Alexandria in the early seventh century.
Inside Saint Martin’s, once the coronation church for Hungarian kings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Saint Martin’s was the coronation church for Hungarian kings and their consorts from 1563 to 1830.
The cathedral became the coronation church in succession to the Church of the Virgin Mary in Székesfehérvár, after that city was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Crown of Saint Stephen was placed on the head of Maximilian II, son of Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg, on 8 September 1563.
In all, 11 kings and queens and eight of their consorts from the Habsburg dynasty were crowned here between 1563 and 1830, including Maria Theresa of Austria. This role is marked to this day by the 300 kg gilded replica of the Hungarian royal crown perched on top of the 85-metre-tall neo-Gothic tower.
Georg Rafael Donner’s sculpture shows Saint Martin as a Hungarian hussar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The first monumental work of central-European sculpture made from lead can be found inside the cathedral. It depicts Saint Martin as a typical Hungarian hussar mounted on his horse, bending to a beggar and cutting his coat to share it with a poor beggar to protect him from the cold. It was created by Georg Rafael Donner for the main altar in 1734, but this now stands in a side nave as a free-standing statue.
Donner also designed the Baroque Chapel of Saint John the Merciful, built at the price of 2,000 pieces of gold and at the expense of Cardinal Péter Pázmány.
The top of the Gothic tower was struck by lightning in 1760 and later replaced by a Baroque tower. This was later destroyed by fire in 1835 and rebuilt, with some modifications, in 1847 and topped with a gold-plated replica of the crown of Saint Stephen. It weighs 150 kg, is over 1 m in diameter, and rests on a 1.2 m × 1.2 m gold-plated pillow and stands 1.64 m high. The pillow and crown contain a total of 8 kg of gold.
The cathedral was given its present-day appearance in 1869-1877, when it was re-Gothicised after suffering damage by fire, war, earthquake and other disasters.
The Archbishops’ crypt beneath the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Since the cathedral was built over a cemetery, it contains catacombs of unknown length and crypts holding the sepulchres of many significant historical figures, up to 6 metres below the church.
Over the centuries, many significant church and political figures have been buried in the cathedral sepulchres, including Jozef Ignác Bajza, author of the first Slovak novel, as well as dozens of bishops, canons, and French priests fleeing the French revolution.
There are least three crypts under the cathedral: the archbishops’ crypt, the Jesuit crypt and the Pálffy family crypt.
The Archbishops’ crypt is accessible from the Saint Anna Chapel and is the only crypt open to the public. It branches into four hallways under the nave in the direction of Kapitulská Street and contains over 90 graves.
The Jesuit crypt is accessible from the Saint Anna Chapel and is located under the road between the cathedral and the adjacent seminary.
The Pálffy crypt under the main altar is accessed from the north side of the cathedral. The Pálffy family were the hereditary owners of the Bratislava Castle.
The altar of the Holy Cross is the work of the Prinoth workshop in St Ulrich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The cathedral serves the Archdiocese of Bratislava, first formed as the Apostolic Administration of Trnava in 1922, when it was subordinate to the Archdiocese of Esztergom, the primatial see of Hungary. Pope Paul VI made it a diocese and renamed it the Archdiocese of Trnava in 1977, and it was renamed the Archdiocese of Bratislava-Trnava in 1995. The Archdiocese of Bratislava was formed in 2008, and its seat was moved from Trnava to Bratislava, which became the seat of the Slovak church.
The cathedral and the neighbouring diocesan seminary are surrounded by cobbled side-streets, courtyards and steep steps. But the structure is threatened by the vibrations caused by heavy traffic on the access ramp to the nearby Nový Most bridge.
The altar of Our Lady of Sorrows is the work of the Prinoth workshop in St Ulrich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Restoration work began in 1997 and the cathedral was declared a national cultural monument since in 2002.
Since 2003, the cathedral’s former role as the coronation church of Hungarian monarchs has been celebrated in style and with fun at the beginning of September each year, when the pomp and circumstance of the coronation procession returns to Bratislava in a reconstruction of the ceremony.
The spire of Saint Martin’s Cathedral (right) seen from Bratislava Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Patrick Comerford
Saint Martin’s Cathedral in Bratislava stands at the western edge of the old city centre, beneath the slopes of Bratislava Castle, and its 85 metre spire dominates the skyline of the old town.
Saint Martin’s Cathedral is the largest and one of the oldest churches in Bratislava, and it was used as the coronation church of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1563 to 1830.
Saint Martin’s Cathedral replaced an earlier chapel or church in the grounds of Bratislava Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Long before the cathedral was built, the site had been the crossroads in the old town centre, with a market and perhaps also a chapel.
At the time, the main centre of worship was a chapel in Bratislava Castle that was used by the provost and chapter of Bratislava. An earlier Moravian church built in the eight century was replaced by a second church dedicated to the Saviour, whose site is still marked out on the castle hill.
King Emeric of Hungary received permission from Pope Innocent II in 1204 to relocate the chapel and the church was built in 1221 in the Romanesque style and dedicated to the Holy Saviour.
Saint Martin’s Cathedral was consecrated in 1452 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
As Bratislava grew, the church became insufficient for its needs, and the building of a new, three-nave, Gothic cathedral began in 1311 on the site of an earlier church and cemetery. The church was built as part of the city walls, and its tower served as a defensive bastion in the mediaeval city fortifications.
The building project was delayed due to the location of the site and a lack of funding in the early 15th century, and it came to a halt during the Hussite Wars. The cathedral was finally completed and consecrated in 1452, although work continued into the 15th century.
The cathedral nave has three aisles divided by two rows of eight columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The cathedral is built in a traditional cruciform shape. The nave consists of three aisles divided by two rows of eight columns. The interior of the church is large – 69.37 metres long, 22.85 metres wide and 16.02 metres high.
The cathedral has four chapels: the canons’ chapel; the Gothic chapel of Queen Sophia of Bavaria, widow of the Czech King Wenceslas IV; the chapel of Saint Anne; and the baroque chapel of Saint John the Merciful, with the body of Saint John the Merciful, who died in Alexandria in the early seventh century.
Inside Saint Martin’s, once the coronation church for Hungarian kings (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Saint Martin’s was the coronation church for Hungarian kings and their consorts from 1563 to 1830.
The cathedral became the coronation church in succession to the Church of the Virgin Mary in Székesfehérvár, after that city was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The Crown of Saint Stephen was placed on the head of Maximilian II, son of Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg, on 8 September 1563.
In all, 11 kings and queens and eight of their consorts from the Habsburg dynasty were crowned here between 1563 and 1830, including Maria Theresa of Austria. This role is marked to this day by the 300 kg gilded replica of the Hungarian royal crown perched on top of the 85-metre-tall neo-Gothic tower.
Georg Rafael Donner’s sculpture shows Saint Martin as a Hungarian hussar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The first monumental work of central-European sculpture made from lead can be found inside the cathedral. It depicts Saint Martin as a typical Hungarian hussar mounted on his horse, bending to a beggar and cutting his coat to share it with a poor beggar to protect him from the cold. It was created by Georg Rafael Donner for the main altar in 1734, but this now stands in a side nave as a free-standing statue.
Donner also designed the Baroque Chapel of Saint John the Merciful, built at the price of 2,000 pieces of gold and at the expense of Cardinal Péter Pázmány.
The top of the Gothic tower was struck by lightning in 1760 and later replaced by a Baroque tower. This was later destroyed by fire in 1835 and rebuilt, with some modifications, in 1847 and topped with a gold-plated replica of the crown of Saint Stephen. It weighs 150 kg, is over 1 m in diameter, and rests on a 1.2 m × 1.2 m gold-plated pillow and stands 1.64 m high. The pillow and crown contain a total of 8 kg of gold.
The cathedral was given its present-day appearance in 1869-1877, when it was re-Gothicised after suffering damage by fire, war, earthquake and other disasters.
The Archbishops’ crypt beneath the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Since the cathedral was built over a cemetery, it contains catacombs of unknown length and crypts holding the sepulchres of many significant historical figures, up to 6 metres below the church.
Over the centuries, many significant church and political figures have been buried in the cathedral sepulchres, including Jozef Ignác Bajza, author of the first Slovak novel, as well as dozens of bishops, canons, and French priests fleeing the French revolution.
There are least three crypts under the cathedral: the archbishops’ crypt, the Jesuit crypt and the Pálffy family crypt.
The Archbishops’ crypt is accessible from the Saint Anna Chapel and is the only crypt open to the public. It branches into four hallways under the nave in the direction of Kapitulská Street and contains over 90 graves.
The Jesuit crypt is accessible from the Saint Anna Chapel and is located under the road between the cathedral and the adjacent seminary.
The Pálffy crypt under the main altar is accessed from the north side of the cathedral. The Pálffy family were the hereditary owners of the Bratislava Castle.
The altar of the Holy Cross is the work of the Prinoth workshop in St Ulrich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
The cathedral serves the Archdiocese of Bratislava, first formed as the Apostolic Administration of Trnava in 1922, when it was subordinate to the Archdiocese of Esztergom, the primatial see of Hungary. Pope Paul VI made it a diocese and renamed it the Archdiocese of Trnava in 1977, and it was renamed the Archdiocese of Bratislava-Trnava in 1995. The Archdiocese of Bratislava was formed in 2008, and its seat was moved from Trnava to Bratislava, which became the seat of the Slovak church.
The cathedral and the neighbouring diocesan seminary are surrounded by cobbled side-streets, courtyards and steep steps. But the structure is threatened by the vibrations caused by heavy traffic on the access ramp to the nearby Nový Most bridge.
The altar of Our Lady of Sorrows is the work of the Prinoth workshop in St Ulrich (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
Restoration work began in 1997 and the cathedral was declared a national cultural monument since in 2002.
Since 2003, the cathedral’s former role as the coronation church of Hungarian monarchs has been celebrated in style and with fun at the beginning of September each year, when the pomp and circumstance of the coronation procession returns to Bratislava in a reconstruction of the ceremony.
The spire of Saint Martin’s Cathedral (right) seen from Bratislava Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)
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