Name: Mathias Church
Category: Religious buildings
Location: 1014 Budapest, Szentháromság tér
Description
The church that can be seen today is the work of Frigyes Schulek. From the outside, you can see the Mathias tower which rises up towards the sky, the Romanesque Béla tower, the main portal with a tympanum showing the Virgin Mary with child and Mary’s door, which dates back to Louis I, the Great. The church contains numerous paintings! Do not miss the chapels: St-Ladislas, the Trinity, St-Émeric and Lorette, the baptismal fonts, and the Museum of Sacred Art.
Tips: Do not miss the highlights: Stained-Glass Windows, Altar, Rose windows, Mary Portal, Loreto Chapel and Baroque Madonna, Ecclesiastical Art Museum
Good to know about Mathias Church
- Matthias Church is located in the heart of the Castle District and dates back to 1051 when Hungary’s first king, St. Stephen I, built a Romanesque church here
- In the 14th century it was transformed into a Gothic church; but it was King Matthias (1458-90) who greatly extened it in the 15th centruy, hence its name
- When the Turks ruled Buda (1541-1686), the temple was transferred into the city’s main mosque
- According to legend, in the siege of 1686 a cannon ball hit one of the walls of the church and a hidden Madonna statue was revealed in front of the praying Turks. The Turks lost the city to the Habsburg forces on the same day
- After the Turks left an attempt to restore the church was made. It didn’t regain its splendour until Budapest’s architectural boom towards the end of the 19th century
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