Monday, January 21, 2013

St. Stephen's Basilica






Outside
St. Stephen's Basilica is a Roman Catholic church located in down town Pest. Unlike many of the surrounding countries, Hungary is predominantly Roman Catholic, rather than Orthodox. St. Stephen's was built in the late 19th century and consecrated in 1905. Between 1905 and 1920, it was the sixth largest church in Hungary. Today, St. Steven's is the third largest remaining church in Hungary, due mostly to the destruction of WWI and WWII.

Front Entrance

Main Arch Entrance Art

Close up of one of the bell towers.
St. Steven's has a total of 6 bells. The largest bell weights around 9 tons. During WWII, St. Steven's suffered heavy damages, and the original bells, from 1905, were melted down for military use. In the 1990's, as Hungary peacefully transitioned from communism to democracy, the building was renovated and new bells were installed.

Square in front of St Steven's. Note the beautiful
patterned rock and the ice. It was like an ice rink!


Inside

One of the great big front doors, from the inside.
Thick red velvet curtains to keep the cold out.
The church is still very cold and drafty - almost
everyone kept their coats and hats on for mass.
From the very back of the church...


Half way up the isles...
Main Altar - unfortunately, this area was closed off so we couldn't get very close after mass.  
If you look carefully, you can see two altars. The far one is the original, built before Vatican II, when the priest would have said mass facing away from the congregation. The closer one is new.

Then, looking above you...

The center dome is elaborately painted and includes windows which light the center of the church. In 1868, after 15 years of trying to build St. Stephen's, the dome collapsed. The architect, Miclos Ybl started again from scratch, but it's said that at St. Stephen's consecration, people still gazed nervously at the dome. Today, the building seems quite solid, although every 10 minutes or so you can feel tremors from the subway. 







Side Chapels 
(the lighting prevented me from getting good pictures of the other six)







Beautiful Marble and Elaborate Decorations






This is one of the many oil paintings.




The organ was played at mass and it was beautiful!
St. Stephen's is famous for it's concerts for a reason.

Stained Glass!





Chapel
Walking to the chapel in the back of the church, you enter a small information room.

This rosary is about 12 feet long, and the beads
appeared to be made of hollowed out eggs.
 And then you're in the chaple...












And finally, at the back of the chapel, you reach St. Stephen's right hand! The hand is housed in a gold box, so you can't actually see much of the bones :(

St. Stephen was born around 970 as the Grand Prince of the Hungarians. In 997, when his own father died, Stephan claimed the right to rule under the principle of Christian divine right, which held that sons inherited power. His uncle, however, also claimed the right to rule, citing the traditional pagan inheritance practices in the region. Eventually they battled and Stephan won.

Stephan is generally recognized as the founder of the Kingdom of Hungary due to his expansion of Hungarian rule in the Carpathian Basin. He is also responsible for establishing Christianity in the region. He died in 1038 and was canonized in 1083. His right arm was divided among European royalty, but his hand was kept in a church in Transylvania. It was then transferred to St. Steven's Basilica in 1905.



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