Church of Stephen I of Hungary: A Classical Parish Church in Slovakia
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Slovakia
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Austrian Empire, Habsburg, Hungarian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page10 sections
History
The parish and the nineteenth-century church
The Church of Stephen I of Hungary is a Roman Catholic parish church in Piešťany, Slovakia, built in the Classical style between 1828 and 1831. It is dedicated to Stephen I, Hungary’s first king, who is venerated as a saint. A parish and church at Piešťany are first mentioned in 1332; this is an early record of the local church, not the construction date of the present building.
Landowner Count František Erdődy, a Hungarian nobleman, began work on the present church in 1828. Construction was completed in 1831, and the church was consecrated the following year. It belongs to the Piešťany parish within the Archdiocese of Trnava, a Roman Catholic territorial jurisdiction, and the Piešťany deanery, a local grouping of parishes.
Later history
A bell had been missing since 1916. After the Second World War, priest Alexander Šindelár arranged a memorial replacement and blessed it on 2 November 1947, the day he died. The church was registered as a national cultural monument of Slovakia on 17 September 1963.
Remains
Architecture and furnishings
Plan and construction
The stone church has a long plan with a single nave, or main interior space, and an oval-ended sanctuary around the main altar. Shallow vaults spanning parallel supports cover the interior. Its Classical design is also described as the early nineteenth-century Empire form of Neoclassicism.
Exterior
Fluted pilasters, shallow wall-mounted features shaped like columns, articulate the exterior. A tower rises within the western gabled front and is topped by a pyramidal roof.
Altar and sculpture
The main altar dates to the building campaign and was made in Vienna, where the gilder’s signature identifies its origin. Its altarpiece depicts Saint Stephen and bears the date 1831; the painter, Ziegler, is named on the work. Two sculptures survive from the side altars, one of the Virgin Mary of the Seven Sorrows and the other of Saint Joseph.
Interior fittings and decoration
Piešťany craftsmen made the church’s confessionals, furnishings used for confession, in the twentieth century in a style drawing on earlier historical designs. The stained-glass windows were made in 1950 to designs by Slovak painter and writer Janko Alexy. Wall paintings by Papp, Petrovič, and Enhof date to 1931.
Cross
A cross made by artistic blacksmith Juraj Šulek was blessed by the Piešťany dean on 13 March 2005 and installed on the church on 18 March. It is 213 centimetres long, weighs 70 kilograms, and is gilded with 24-carat gold.
