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Bohus Mino (6 years ago)
Old market classic
Old market classic
Jan B (7 years ago)
The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary or commonly known as the Dominican Church is the oldest church in Košice. In the first written document from 1303 it is mentioned as an already existing church. It was built around 1290. The oldest part of the church is the Romanesque nave with narrow windows. During the Baroque reconstruction they had been broadened into the present shape. The sanctuary is built in the Gothic style as well as the tower on the northern joint of the nave with the sanctuary. The 68 metres high conical tower is the highest in Košice.
After a big fire in 1556, the damaged church served as a store-house up to the beginning of the 18th century, when it was rebuilt in the Baroque style.
The interior is richly decorated with wall paintings. The ceiling was painted in the years 1750-1758 by Štefan Voroš. The main altar illustrates the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The altar of the Rosary Virgin Mary is also to be mentioned as it is believed that the Rosary is the idea of Saint Dominic, the founder of the Dominican Order. Paintings and statues in the church represent the most famous of numerous Dominican saints: Dominic de Guzman, Catherine of Siena, Thomas Aquinas or the Dominican nun Margaret, daughter of the King Béla IV.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.