St Nicholas Basilica – Trnava (Nagyszombat)
For almost three centuries, from 1543 to 1820, St Nicholas Basilica in Trnava (Nagyszombat) was the cathedral of the Archbishops of Esztergom. Thanks to the weeping image of Our Lady of Trnava, it is today a Marian shrine of the Archdiocese of Trnava, and it has been a minor basilica since 2008.
The parish church, dedicated to St Nicholas, patron saint of merchants, stands on the site of the medieval market place and replaced an 11th-century Romanesque church. The Gothic church was commissioned by King Louis the Great and built between 1380 and 1421 as a three-aisled basilica with a twin-towered façade. It is 60 metres long and 31 metres wide, with a nave 18 metres high. When Esztergom fell to the Ottomans in 1543, the archbishop's see moved to Trnava, and St Nicholas became the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Esztergom.
Archbishop Péter Pázmány had the church remodelled in the Baroque style between 1618 and 1630, adding side chapels, a Baroque choir and several new altars, including the high altar dedicated to All Saints. Among those buried in the church are the Archbishops of Esztergom Nicolaus Olahus (Miklós Oláh, †1568), Antun Vrančić (Antal Verancsics, †1573), János Kutassy (†1601) and Imre Lósy (†1642), as well as the Lord Chief Justice György Homonnai Drugeth (†1620). The archbishop's see returned to Esztergom in 1820; from 1918 to 1977 the church was once again a cathedral, as the main church of the Apostolic Administration of Trnava.
In 1739 Archbishop Imre Esterházy of Esztergom added an octagonal Baroque chapel to the north side. It houses the image of Our Lady of Trnava, a copy of the Marian image in the Church of Saints Alexius and Boniface in Rome, venerated as the town's protector since 1546. According to tradition, the image wept in 1663, at a time of Ottoman threat, and three times in 1708, during the Kuruc wars. On 10 August 2008 Archbishop Ján Sokol of Trnava declared the church a Marian shrine, and in the same year Pope Benedict XVI raised it to the rank of minor basilica. The Rieger organ of 1912 hosts an international organ festival every August.
Pilgrimage feast: following a vow made when the plague of 1710 ended, the nine-day Trnava Novena is held every November (in recent years from 13 to 21 November). During the novena the image is placed on the high altar, and on its Sunday it is carried in procession through the town after a festive Mass.
Visiting: the basilica stands at the highest point of Trnava's historic centre, on St Nicholas Square near the town walls; next to it is the Archbishop's Palace, built by Nicolaus Olahus in 1562. The town's other churches, including St John the Baptist Cathedral, are within easy walking distance in the old town.
Sources: Repository of Hungarian Values in Slovakia · Wikipedia (Slovak) · Wikipedia (English) · TASR – the Trnava novena
Photo: Kiwiev / Wikimedia Commons, CC0 · Photo: Kiwiev / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Town:
Trnava (Nagyszombat)
