The tumultuous history of Protestantism in Slovakia, former Upper Hungary
The Reformation. The moral decline of society in the 15th and 16th centuries did not spare the Church and its representatives. The denunciation of corruption in the religious system gave rise to the Reform movement. The Protestant reformation, commonly known as the "Reformation", marks the desire for religious and social change. Originating in Germany under the impetus of Martin Luther, this movement quickly crossed borders to spread to its trading partners, including Slovakia. The news was supported by the nobility against the powers that be. While the period of greatest Reformation development in Slovakia was 1521-1523, the Catholic Habsburgs still ruled Hungary.
The Counter-Reformation. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) condemned the Reformation as aggression, and the counter-Reformation began. The strict Inquisition and the ban on freedom of religion were restored to a people where 90% of believing Slovaks had rallied to the Reformation movement. The counter-Reformation focused on suppressing temples and expelling preachers and teachers who supported the Reformation. Various methods were used to bring the population back to Catholicism, including cruel punishments and executions. Leopold I, raised by Jesuits, acceded to the Hungarian throne in 1655, and a decade of absolutism followed, with the confiscation of 888 churches. But faced with the uprisings of the oppressed people and the Turkish threat, he was forced to relax his rules. On October 8, 1681, the emperor issued a resolution allowing Protestants to build a temple in Bratislava. This was the first step towards strict, binding rules governing the construction of Protestant churches.
The origin of joint lurches
To deal with Catholic discontent, Emperor Leopold I added restrictions governed by "articles" (hence the name articular churches) on the construction of non-Catholic churches in Upper Hungary. To begin with, only two churches could be built in each administrative unit, and only one in royal towns, mining towns or border towns. Secondly, the binding rules were as follows: the temple had to be built in less than a year, entirely of wood, without nails or metal elements, on the outskirts of the village or outside the city limits, without a bell tower, with a main entrance not directly overlooking the street and a stone foundation not exceeding one foot above ground level. A second article stipulated that Protestants had to return to the State the churches they had built before the period of persecution, provided they had not received Catholic ordination in the meantime.
Instead of the 888 confiscated temples, this administrative change enabled the construction of only 38 new Protestant temples in the eleven regions not occupied by the Turks. It should also be added that Habsburg officials made every effort to further reduce the sustainability of these new evangelical churches by arbitrarily modifying building regulations and increasing restrictive sanctions.
It was not until a hundred years later that the sovereign Joseph II issued a "patent of tolerance" allowing Protestants to build brick churches, but still outside central squares and still without towers or steeples.
Protestant articular churches in Slovakia are rare historical monuments, because in neighboring countries, where intolerance did not exist, there were no similar restrictions. Slovak Protestants had to show great ingenuity and call on architects with specific skills to achieve compliance with the articles. To this day, six of these architectural curiosities remain, including thewooden articular church in Svätý Kríž (Drevený artikulárny kostol Svätý Kríž), thewooden articular church in Istebné (Drevený artikulárny kostol Istebné), and those listed as Unesco World Heritage Sites: the wooden articular church in Hronsek (Drevený artikulárny kostol Hronsek), thewooden articular church in Leštiny (Drevený artikulárny kostol Leštiny) and the wooden articular church in Kežmarok (Drevený artikulárny kostol Kežmarok).
The main wooden churches of other denominations
The greatest concentration of wooden churches (there are 38) can be found around Bardejov and Svidnik, towns in north-eastern Slovakia. They are the pride and joy of the Ruthenians. This small ethnic group with its own identity traditionally lives in the eastern Carpathians, on the borders of Slovakia and Ukraine. They speak a language very close to Ukrainian, write in Cyrillic, but are Greek-Catholic (or Uniate). United with other Catholics under the spiritual direction of the Pope, they nevertheless retain the Old Slavic liturgy and many of the rites of the Orthodox Church, such as the marriage of priests and baptism by immersion. Their churches are little marvels, made of wood from floor to ceiling, dotting the bucolic roads of the eastern part of the country. The most famous are:St. Nicholas Church in Bodružal (Chrám svätého Mikuláša Bodružal), St. Michael the Archangel Church in Ladomirová (Chrám svätého Michala archanjela Ladomirová) and St. NicholasChurch in Ruská Bystrá (Chrám Prenesenia ostatkov svätého Mikuláša Ruská Bystrá).
There are also eleven Catholic churches, the most noteworthy of which are the two listed by Unesco as World Heritage Sites: the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Hervartov (Kostol svätého Františka z Assisi Hervartov), built of wood by villagers in the late 15th century and featuring murals dating from 1655-1805, and theChurch of All Saints in Tvrdošín (Kostol Všetkých svätých Tvrdošín), built in the 15th century and renovated in Renaissance style in the 17th century.
Finally, the Church of Archangel Michael in Rusky Potok (kostol svätého Michala archanjela Rusky Potok) is one of the country's few Orthodox churches.
The greatest concentration of these unique buildings can be found around the towns of Svidník and Bardejov.
