Characteristics of the church
With its graceful appearance and sky-scraping tower, the church of St. Vendel, built between 1862-1863 in Romantic style, is the highlight of the hiking trail and the site of our sacral journey to Fegyvernek.
The single-nave, transept church with semicircular sanctuary enclosure and gable roof is a striking feature of the church, with a lined decoration of the doorway at the base of the tower, with gradually narrowing doorways decorated with a variety of patterns. The door, painted brilliant white and decorated with lavish ironwork, gives the church entrance an imposing appearance. On both sides of the sanctuary there is a mezzanine, and on the side of the nave facing the main door there is a gallery.
Both the wall paintings and the furnishings are of romantic style. The organ was made by Nándor Komornyik, a master organ builder from Pest, in the year of its construction.
A link between two peoples
According to local historical research, the church was built to reconcile two nationalities, the Swabian and the Hungarian communities, and to act as a kind of link between the two parts of the town.
From the 1840’s, the foreign-speaking German population was settled in Fegyvernek, and, as a result, the number of Catholics increased significantly, with some three and a half thousand adherents in 1850. Both the Hungarian and the Swabian inhabitants had a need for a church, since the town belonged to the Roman Catholic Church of Tiszabő until 1862, and the people of Fegyvernek were married and baptised there. It did not even have a parish. The building of the church marked the beginning of sacral autonomy, although it was not yet possible to have a pastor. However, the two nationalities did not agree on the location of the new church, so finally, the delegation appointed by Archbishop Béla Bartakovics of Eger decided that the church should be built on the empty plot of land on the border of “Magyarfalu” and the Swabian Annaháza town part. Thus, the foundation stone was laid in 1862. The church was built by the Hungarian architect Károly Gerster with the collaboration of Frigyes Feszl and Lipót Kauser.
The church was consecrated in 1864 in honour of Saint Vendel.
Sounds of the church
The largest of its bells is the St. Vendel great bell, cast in 1863 in Pest by Ferenc Walser the Elder. Of particular interest is that it is one of the earliest bells in Hungary manufactured with a disc suspension; the eponymous saint is depicted on one side. The small bell was cast in 1923 by the Ecclesia Bell Works in Budapest under the direction of the German Fritz Wilhelm Rincker. The Soul Bell, weighing only 40 kg, was made by Ferenc Walser Jr. in Budapest in 1929, with the Hungarian coat of arms on the side.
A stroll through the churchyard reveals a Holy Trinity column (1897) and a stone cross (1909), both traces of the sacral architecture of the beginning of the century.
The church was built in its present form in 1934 and has been listed as a building subject to monument protection since 1957.
Sources:
http://www.muemlekem.hu/muemlek/show/5890
László Országh (2020): The assimilation of the Swabians in Fegyvernek. Zounuk, 2020. Issue no. 34. (Yearbook of the Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County Archives of the Hungarian National Archives)
http://www.magyarharangok.hu/fegyvernek.html
