SEVEN REASONS FOR VISITING THE CATHEDRAL OF ST.ELIZABETH

MILLE VIAE DUCUNT HOMINEM PER SAECULA CASSOVIAM Thousands of roads over the centuries have led people to Košice or SEVEN REASONS FOR VISITING THE CATHEDRAL OF ST.ELIZABETH 1. Košice’s cathedral is the easternmost monumental Gothic church in Europe, and the most beautiful in Slovakia. It was built for the most part between the years 1380 and 1508, and it has been an episcopal church since 1804.

2. The high altar with its 48 paintings in three rows is unique in Europe. In the Middle Ages it was customary to paint at most 36 pictures in two rows and in two sequences. This altar comprises three cycles – the Elizabethan with 12, the Advent with 12, and the Passion cycle with 24 pictures. In the past the altar wings were opened at regular intervals during the ecclesiastical year to reveal the appropriate cycle, so that the faithful and visitors to the Cathedral could experience the paintings in all their splendour.

3. St.Elizabeth of Hungary and Thuringia (1207–1231). With her dynastic marriage, but above all with her support for the poor and needy and her charitable activity of a kind unheard of among royal families of that time, she ultimately achieved what St.Stephen (975?–15.8.1038), the first Hungarian king (1000/1001–1038), had initiated – the acceptance of the Latin rite in Greater Hungary and the inclination of the monarchy towards the West.

4. The seven most valuable heritage pieces in the Cathedral’s interior: 4.1 the High Altar to St.Elizabeth 4.2 the Altar to the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, dated 1516 (Luke 1, 46-55 – the Magnificat) 4.3 the 14th-century bronze font – the oldest heritage piece in the Cathedral. The cover was made in 1914 by the famous local bell-casting firm Buchner.

4.4 the “Mettercia” Chapel. This late-Gothic tabular painting dated 1516 portrays St.Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ.

4.5 the early 15th-century Gothic Calvary group stands on the royal gallery above the south entrance. The body on the cross is more than three metres tall. Leading up to the gallery are 52 steps in the intertwined double-spiral royal staircase.

4.6 four Gothic wood-carved figures dated around 1470 stand on pillars below the choir gallery. They represent St.Stephen the King, his son St.Emmerich, St.Ladislaus the King and St.Stanilaus the Bishop.

4.7 the Gothic stone sacrament-house created by Master Stephen, completed in 1477, the most impressive of the Cathedral’s stone ornaments. This was originally where the altar sacraments were kept, but in less than a century it became redundant when the Council of Trent (1545–1563) decided that the consecrated Host would be kept in tabernacles placed on the altar itself.

5. The seven most valuable heritage pieces on the Cathedral’s exterior: 5.1 the carved reliefs above the main western entrance 5.2 the south (Matthew’s) tower, which has remained uncompleted. Inside there is a labyrinth of interconnected spiral staircases.

5.3 the sundial on the south wall of this tower 5.4 the south entrance and porch, with carved reliefs nearby portraying the chief architect of the neo-Gothic purist reconstruction Imrich Steindl, and Josef Weber, works supervisor from 1877–80, who died tragically during the reconstruction work.

5.5 the north entrance and façade, with its central motif of the Last Judgement surrounded by five reliefs: two scenes depicting St.Elizabeth, and one each of the Virgin Mary with some women, St.John the disciple with some Roman soldiers, and the crucified Christ.

5.6 the commemorative plaque to Ferenc Rákóczi II, dated 1938.

5.7 the north tower, with 160 narrow steps inside leading brave visitors up to the gallery, where they can enjoy an unusual view over the city centre.

6. The crypt (Gr. kryptos = hidden, secret) created in 1905, containing the remains of Ferenc Rákóczi II (1676–1735), leader of the final kurucz uprising, as well as his mother, eldest son and three loyal followers. Rákóczi fought for equal rights of the Hungarian nobility with the ruling Austrian Habsburgs. He died in exile in Turkey, and his remains were brought back here (requiring the personal approval of Emperor Franz Joseph I) and ceremonially buried on 26th October 1906, the year of the 1010th anniversary of the arrival of the old Magyars in the Carpathian Basin (896 AD).

7. In 1970 the Cathedral, together with nearby Urban’s Tower and St.Michael’s Chapel, was declared a national cultural monument. © Jozef Soročin, 2014, www.issuu.com/VydSorocinJ © Translated by: Andrew Billingham