Prakfalvi Endre: Roman Catholic Churches in Unified Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2003)
Church of the Sacred Heart, 1891
Church of the Sacred Heart, 1891 Lőrinc pap tér, District VIII "Omnia ad maiorem Dei glóriám" (All for the greater glory of God—motto of the Society of Jesus) This building in a small square opening up between the apartment blocks of the Inner Józsefváros (Joseph's Town) is a church associated with devotion to the Heart of Jesus, which was reborn in the 19th century. (The name of the square, which it has had since 1951, is that of the deputy commander of the peasant armies in the uprising led by György Dózsa in 1514. Previously, from the turn of the century, it was named after Prince Primate János Scitovszky, who in 1858 had consecrated the Esztergom basilica, which was built to replace its predecessor destroyed during the Turkish wars.) Opposite the two-steepled church and its rosetted fagade stands a statue of Nándor Zichy (Antal Orbán, 1930). A 19th century politician, Zichy was the leader of the Catholic peers in the Upper House and the founder of the People's Party. The statue was re-erected after the political changes of 1989-90. The church, whose proportions are no larger than those of a chapel, was designed by József Kauser (1848—1919), who had attended the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, an establishment run by the followers of Viollet-le-Duc. This is what Kauser recalled in an 1898 issue of the journal építő Ipar (Construction Industry). "I was commissioned by a lady of old aristocratic stock, patriotic sentiment and superior education (Teréz Győri) in 1889 to design a church accommodating a congregation of 500 to 600 and a monastery-like apartment building for six or seven monks to be built at the corner of Mária and József Streets on a plot set aside for a tenement building of hers. It was stipulated that in its appearance the church should follow the simple, serene, and unaffected style of old, i.e. medieval, monastic churches, while its structure be adjusted to the requirements of our modern times... (and that) materials of domestic provenance be used." The three-aisled basilica-style church, which had no transept, received benediction in 1891 and was consecrated by Bishop Medárd Kohl on 27 March 1909. The statue of Jesus on the main altar of the chancel, whose closure comprises five sides of an octagon, was made in Munich. The small Jesuit monastery can be found behind the apse. The architectonic structuring of spaces here was described by the designer himself, who said that nothing ,was more natural to him than to "follow the 12
