Tari Edit: Pest megye középkori templomai (Studia Comitatensia 27. Szentendre, 2000.)
th of these saints, but as patrons they appear first at the end of the 11 -beginning, middle of the 12 th century. The frequency of patron saints of Hungarian origin is 4-8% in other regions, 427 whereas in Pest county there are 17 cases which is a high percentage (10.75 %) comparing to other territories. It is a general phenomenon throughout the country that Hungarian saints were used as patrons only moderately. THE CUSTOM OF ORIENTATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE EAST The research of this topic in Hungary goes back to the beginning of the 20 th century. In the case of many ecclesiastical buildings it was observed that the orientation deviated from the specified east-west direction and it was assumed that this topic deserved attention. So, the examination of the orientation is reasonable even if to-date we can not explain convincingly the arising questions. The direction of the churches to the east is based on an ancient, mystic tradition. The significance of east is a frequently appearing symbolic motif explained in different ways. The custom of turning to east when praying led to the tradition of orienting the churches to the east, started in the 3 rd century. At the beginning in Rome and other places the entrance was directed to east, so during the service the priest looked there and - at the same time - to the people. The crowd of believers had to turn their backs during the service, gradually the practice of placing the chancel in the east started to spread. From the 6 th century we have data according to which a papal edict regulated the eastern direction when building church. 428 In this process we can trace the pagan Sun cult taken over by and rooted into the Christian symbolics. From the 11 th century we have an increasing number of writings considering the orientation of the church to the east, the rules of orientation. There are two equinoxes (aequinoctium) in a year: in the spring (March 21 st ) and in the autumn (September 23 rd ). This corresponds to the astronomical east-west direction. On these two days the axis of the church could be marked out at the sunrise or sunset. The largest deviation from the east-west direction could be caused by marking out on the summer (June 22 nd ) or winter (December 21 st ) solstice, which can be as significant as 35 degrees. Ecclesiastical rules clearly prescribed the orientation on equinoxes, but they also inform us on different orientations as well. By the 12 th —13 th century the practice of marking out the axis of the church on solstice or on equinoxes was mixed in many cases. 429 The church canonised the east-west orientation of ecclesiastic buildings and made it stricter only in the 12 th century, so it would be plausible to suggest that some other practice of marking out the church had existed in the Árpádian Age. 430 There are several explanations for the deviation from the east-west direction. Taking this into consideration we can not regard the attempts made by certain researchers to use only one aspect to explain this phenomenon. 427 Szabó 1984. 78. 428 Guzsik 1975. 95. 429 Guzsik 1975. 95. 430 Guzsik 1975. 92. 244
