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Basilica
History
The official name of the church is Saint Stephen
Basilica.
It's the largest roman catholic church in Budapest.
The area on which the church was built covers
altogether 4147 sqm, it is 96 m high (as high
as the Parliament) and it can hold 8500 persons.
The majority of the Hungarians are roman catholic;
almost 70 % of us are roman catholic, about
28 % protestants, 1 % is Jewish, less than 1
% is Greek-Orthodox.
First of all this 'Basilica' is not a basilica
- the church has no basilica ground-plan, so
it's not a basilica.
It's not as old as it looks - it was built between
1851-1905 by three different Hungarian architects
(Hild, Ybl, Kauser) in three different styles
(classical, neo-renaissance, Neobaroque).
In 1838, when the great flood destroyed the
city, there was an altitude on the site of the
Basilica where a small church dedicated to St.
Leopold stood.
The work on the building started in 1851, when
Pest was still a small town.
The designer, József Hild, died soon
afterwards, then Miklós Ybl, the architect
who later designed the Opera House, directed
the construction.
Ybl had a fence built around the half-ready
church and set watchmen to guard it.
Eight days later, in January 1868, the dome
fell in.
Then Ybl made new plans and work started again,
almost from the beginnings.
But he did not live to see the church finished,
dying in 1891.
The Basilica was finished by József Kauser
in 1906.
Franz Joseph gave a speech at the opening ceremony
and, it was rumored, cast suspicious glances
at the dome, which is 22 meters in diameter.
In the WW2 it was damaged by bombs, one in 1944
at the Christmas high mass when the choir was
singing the "Gloria" hit the entablature
above Benczur's picture and shook the church
tremendously.
Outside
The main facade is not on the busy Bajcsy-Zsilinszky
út; it is on the opposite side.
The Basilica is a rare example in city planning
in the sense that during the time it was built
the structure of the city around it changed.
The walls outside the chancel are richly decorated
with an elegant Ionic colonnade and with statues
of the 12 apostles.
Above the main gate is a bust of St. Stephen
made of Carrara marble, above the bust is a
mosaic picture designed by Bertalan Székely
and Mór Than.
The group of statues in the tympana represent
Virgin Mary as Patron of Hungary among Hungarian
saints, the work of Leó Fessler.
Under the tympana a quotation from the Bible
(Ego sum via, veritas et vita - meaning in English:
I am the road, the truth and the life) can be
read.
The main gate opens from the vestibule, it is
covered with bronze relieves representing the
12 apostles, which is work of Ödön
Szamolovszky.
Under the church there is a large cellar, it
was here that many of the important documents
of the city and some valuable art treasures
survived the last war.
Inside
The ground plan of the neo-Renaissance basilica
shows a Greek cross.
The general opinion is that the Basilica has
insufficient light.
In the basilica everything is covered with marble
- the floor, the walls, the ceiling.
They used 50 different kinds of marble for the
decorations of this church, the most expensive
one comes from Carrara, all the statues are
made of this white marble.
All the other marble types come from different
parts of Hungary.
The organ is the largest in Budapest; it has
4451 (5231) pipes, it is the third in large
in Hungary, made in the Angster workshop in
Pécs.
The cupola mosaic represents God with Christ,
angels and prophets made as well in Italy, Venice.
At this time this kind of decoration was new
in Hungary and no experts were found, so the
Agonio Salviati workshop was commissioned to
make them, this workshop reconstructed the mosaics
of the St Paul's Cathedral in London.
High Altar
Whenever you enter to a roman catholic church
on the high altar you usually see the statue
of the virgin Mary, or Jesus Christ, or both.
Here in this church the statue on the high altar
is the statue of first Hungarian king
Saint Stephen; the statue is work of Alajos
Stróbl.
He was state founder, and he was the king, who
forced the nomadic Hungarians to take the new
religion, in other worlds he converted the nation
in to Christianity.
They had to ask for a special papal-permission
to put the statue of a man on the high-altar,
finally they have got the permission, so today
his statue is to be seen here, which is quite
unusual.
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