Franciscan Church and Monastery – Vynohradiv (Nagyszőlős)
The Franciscan church and monastery in the centre of Vynohradiv (Nagyszőlős) preserve one of the order's oldest footholds in Transcarpathia: the friars were invited to the town by the Perényi family and cared for the Catholic faithful for centuries. The church is dedicated to St John of Capistrano, whose mortal remains, according to tradition, were once kept in the town.
The first Franciscan friary was probably founded in the early 16th century by István Perényi and his wife Isota Frangepán (Frankopan), on a hillock rising south of Ugocsa Castle above the town. In 1535 the house of the Observant friars was home to eleven priests, two novices and nine lay brothers, and the province held its chapter here on several occasions. Tradition says that after the Battle of Mohács the body of St John of Capistrano was brought here for safety from Ilok (Újlak), and that when Protestant townspeople stormed the friary in the mid-16th century, they killed the friars and threw the relics into a well. None of this can be confirmed by charters. Local people named the ruins Kankó Castle after the friars' coarse habits.
The Franciscans returned in 1668 at the invitation of the Perényis, this time to another part of town: they were given the former manor house of Gábor Bánffy and dedicated their new church to St John of Capistrano. After a short absence they settled again in 1690, and from 1727 they also ran the parish. After a fire in 1747 the friary was rebuilt in the Baroque style, and the church was remodelled in 1889.
After the Second World War the friars had to leave, the monastery was turned into a museum and the church could not serve its original purpose for a long time. In 1989 Hungarian Franciscans – members of the province named after St John of Capistrano, among them the future Bishop of Mukachevo, Antal Majnek – started a mission in the town; the buildings were returned to the Catholic Church and restored. In 2012, the 500th anniversary of the friars' arrival, a chapel of St Francis was opened with a sculpture of St Francis of Assisi and a fellow friar. A two-storey wing of cells adjoins the single-nave Baroque church, and the complex is listed as a monument of national importance in Ukraine.
Visiting: the church and monastery stand in the centre of Vynohradiv at 3 Myru Street, close to the Perényi Mansion and the former county hall of Ugocsa. The ruins of Ugocsa Castle on Chorna Hora (Fekete-hegy) above the town can also be visited. Vynohradiv lies about 35 km from Berehove. Before travelling, check the current travel advice of your foreign ministry.
Sources: Hungarian Catholic Lexicon · Wikipedia · Explore Carpathia · Wikipedia – St John of Capistrano · Wikipedia – Antal Majnek · Wikipedia (Ukrainian)
Photo: Dmytro Petishkin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 · Photo: Dmytro Petishkin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Town:
Vynohradiv (Nagyszőlős)
