Church of the Holy Trinity, Chtelnica: A Neoclassical Parish Church in Slovakia
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Slovakia
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Habsburg, Hungarian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page8 sections
History
Construction and consecration
The Church of the Holy Trinity in Chtelnica, Slovakia, is a Roman Catholic parish church dedicated to the Holy Trinity, the Christian belief in one God in three persons. Built in stone in the Neoclassical style, which revived forms associated with ancient Greek and Roman architecture, it began with the blessing of its cornerstone on 6 May 1794. Construction was completed in 1800, and the church was solemnly consecrated on 21 June 1801.
The church serves Chtelnica Parish and belongs to the Piešťany Deanery, the Trnava Archdiocese, and the Western Ecclesiastical Province. A deanery groups parishes, while an ecclesiastical province brings dioceses together under an archbishop.
Later changes and protection
Electric lighting was installed in 1940. On 17 September 1963, the church was entered on Slovakia’s Central List of Monuments as a National Cultural Monument. Its bells were electrified in 1973.
Remains
Building and interior
The stone church has one main worship space and a single tower. It measures about 45 metres long and 14 metres wide, and stands 46 metres high. The tower is 3.9 metres wide and carries a cross measuring 4 metres high. A marble altar stands near the middle of the church, with the priest facing the congregation. Work in 1982–1985 restored the altars, paintings, and sculptures, gilded the pulpit, renewed the vault above the presbytery, the area around the high altar, and installed new pews. The tower roof, repaired in 1983, is covered with copper sheeting.
Tower bells
Two bells, weighing 750 kg and 300 kg, were cast in Trnava by Alojz Kurbela in 1927 from parishioners’ donations, during the tenure of parish priest Ján Ochaba. One bears an invocation to the Holy Trinity and the other to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus in Christian belief. Both also carry inscriptions recording their casting. A 500 kg bell donated by parishioners in 1993 bears an invocation to Saint Charles Borromeo, a sixteenth-century Catholic cardinal and archbishop of Milan who was later canonized. The Dytrich family cast it in Brodek u Přerova, Moravia. Another bell, weighing 90 kg, came from Chtelnica’s Church of St John the Baptist. Cast in Vienna by Michal in 1719, it asks John the Baptist, the biblical figure associated with baptizing Jesus, to protect people from danger and evil and to pray for the faithful.
Organ
The organ stands on a choir gallery, an elevated space for an organ or choir. It is a Rieger-Kloss instrument made in Krnov as the firm’s 1,333rd instrument and dated to the late eighteenth century. It was repaired in 1998–1999 and was undergoing reconstruction in 2009.
Crypt
A crypt, a chamber beneath a church, lies below the building and has an entrance on its north side. It was restored in 1995, concreted, and fitted with iron stairs.
