St Catherine of Alexandria Church – Rechnitz (Rohonc)
St Catherine of Alexandria Church in Rechnitz (Rohonc) is the main church of a former estate centre of the Batthyány family and an important Baroque monument of southern Burgenland. The Jesuit poet Ferenc Faludi, who spent the last years of his life in Rechnitz, rests in its crypt.
The parish of Rechnitz was already active around 1400. The medieval church, dedicated to St Margaret, was destroyed in the Ottoman campaign of 1532, and the town also burned down in 1644. According to the Austrian heritage literature, construction of the present church began in 1654 on the commission of Count Ádám Batthyány and was completed in 1679, in the time of his grandson. It was remodelled in the Baroque style in the late 1720s and restored and altered again in 1850.
From the 16th century Rechnitz was one of the most important estate centres of the Batthyány family, who also built their castle here. After the suppression of the Jesuit order, the poet, writer and translator Ferenc Faludi (1704–1779) retired to the Batthyány estate at Rechnitz, where he died on 18 December 1779. According to a 1979 study in the Burgenländische Heimatblätter, he was buried in an unmarked grave in the crypt of the Rechnitz church.
A porch bearing the Batthyány coat of arms stands in front of the Baroque building's stepped south gable. Sacristies and transept-like chapels adjoin both sides of the barrel-vaulted nave, and a tall tower with a pointed spire rises beside the recessed chancel. The murals of the nave were painted by Fritz Silberbauer in 1935. Besides the 17th-century high altar with statues of the Church Fathers, the baptismal font made in 1729–1730 deserves attention. The column of Our Lady of Sorrows in front of the church was erected by the Batthyány family in memory of the plague of 1710.
Pilgrimage feast: the church's titular feast is the day of St Catherine of Alexandria, 25 November.
Visiting: Rechnitz lies about 15 km north-west of Szombathely and 14 km west of Kőszeg, at the southern foot of the Kőszeg (Günser) Mountains. The church stands at the northern end of the main square, with the plague column in front of it. The Lutheran church built in 1783 is also worth seeing, and the walking and cycling trails of the Geschriebenstein–Írottkő Nature Park await visitors in the surroundings.
Sources: Wikipedia (German) · Wikipedia – Rohonc (Rechnitz) · Burgenländische Heimatblätter – László Szörényi: Ferenc Faludi (1979) · Wikipedia – Ferenc Faludi
Photo: Thomas Ledl / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photo: Nxr-at / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Town:
Rechnitz (Rohonc)
