Churches of Eastern Europe - II

The second city on our "Blue Danube" tour with Viking River Cruises in late April was Bratislava, Slovakia.  This small city is the capital of its nation.  Bratislava has 500,000 residents, one tenth of the population of the entire country.  Since Slovakia's peaceful separation from the Czech Republic in 1993, Slovakia has grown in commerce, particularly the auto industry and high-tech companies.

    
Most of my friends went on a bus tour of a castle high above the old city of Bratislava.  My friend Jeff and I took the walking tour with Petr, a local grad student.  Petr was an excellent guide, with fine English skills, and a subtle sense of humor.  We did not have the time to see the Franciscan Church, nor the Blue Church (St. Elizabeth) in the city.  But we did spend considerable time in St. Martin's Cathedral.

Unlike all the other extravagantly designed and decorated churches we saw on this river cruise, St. Martin was downright plain.  However, this may have had to do with its age.  The core of the church was begun in 1221.  Yes, that's right, 794 years ago -- give or take a century!  Modifications and enlargements happened in 1311-1314, 1452, 1467-87, and most recently 1863-1878.   The plainness may have been a result of the intermittent rain that fell on us throughout our walking tour, and the heavy grey overcast sky.  As a result, we did not appreciate the cathedral's stained glass windows.   

It is in the Gothic style, with several chapels.  The claim to fame of St. Martin's is that it hosted 19 coronations of kings and queens between 1563 and 1830.  This somewhat fractured English translation is from the booklet that I bought in the cathedral:  "Eleven kings and eight queens consort bowed their Majesties to receive Hungarian crown, so-called Crown of St. Stephen from Archbishop and Palatine.  Along with resounding names as Maximilian, his sons Rudolf and Matthias, the most important is the name of Maria Theresa.  She was the only woman crowned as a king, that is by receiving the Crown on her head as a symbol of full responsibility for burden of reign, in contrast to queens consort.  In that case, the Crown was only held above their right shoulder as a sign that they are recourse to their kings regnant while ruling."  (Queen Maria Theresa ruled Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Austria Netherlands, Lorraine, Parma, and Tuscany as the Holy Roman Empress from 1740 to 1780.  She was known for her reforms.  She and her husband Francis I had 16 children.)

Of interest to me was a large statue, done by Georg Raphael Donner in 1735, of St. Martin of Tours, the patron of the cathedral.  He was a Roman officer of the 4th century, sitting atop a dramatically upraised horse.  But in this statue he's dressed with the outfit of an 18th century Hungarian officer (hussar).  With his sword in his right hand, he looks as if he's about to kill a near-naked man on the ground.  But closer examination shows that St. Martin is cutting his own cloak in half with his sword, to give to this beggar.  This iconic scene is meant to convey the generosity of St. Martin.  It's really quite a powerful image.  (Martin eventually put down his sword and military career, became a hermit, and later was elected a bishop by the people's acclamation.)  

Very close to the statue, on the right side of the cathedral, is a two meter by three meter Plexiglas cover over an archaeological excavation.  It's about three meters deep, and clearly visible to us startled tourists are four human skulls.  My helpful booklet says that this small dig "presents relics of cemetery from 11th century."  

In the rear of the church is a two room museum, labeled a sacristy.  Displayed are elaborate vestments (we call the priest's chasubles "fiddlebacks" today) for the local archbishops and rectors of the cathedral.  It's astonishing to see the intricate detail of hand-sewn vestments and gold chalices.  You can see more images of the interior, exterior and vestments of St. Martin's Cathedral at its website.  (The website is in Slovak, but the photos are beautiful and understandable in any language.) 

I very much enjoyed St. Martin's Cathedral atop the hillside of Bratislava.  Filled with history, it represents the church's multi-faceted intertwining with the history of the Danube River valleys.