Prakfalvi Endre: Roman Catholic Churches in Unified Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2003)
The Church of St. Elizabeth of the House of Árpád, 1901
ment is the escutcheon of the order and its Latin mottos, Zelo zelatus sum pro Domino Deo exercituum (1 am filled with zealous love for God, the Lord of the Hosts); Venue exultemus Domino, Jubilemus Deo salutari nostro (Come, let us praise the Lord and rejoice in our Saviour). The significance of the church is due, besides its value in terms of architectural history, to the iconographic wealth of its furniture, its altars and pictures, together with the history of its order traceable to Mount Carmel and Old Testament times. It was on Mount Carmel, on the old cubic site of the Canaanites, that the prophet Elijah restored the Lord's altar after the priests of Baal were vanquished (I Kings 18). This is depicted in the wall paintings of the oratory (János Szilágyi, 1947). The Virgin Mary, patroness of Mount Carmel, had a thriving devotional following among the hermits living there as early as the third century A.D. At the beginning of the 12th century, the knight Berthold gathered together the hermits of the mount. From him, the knight Brocard, the second general of the order, took over leadership, now under a unified rule. (Berthold’s statue stands on the main altar.) Approved by Pope Honorius 111, the regulations were drawn up by St. Albert, whose memory is invoked by the stained-glass window above the entrance to the monastery. The altarpiece represents the Virgin of Mount Carmel handing over the scapular filled with the dew of divine grace to Stock St. Simon, the superior of the order (c. 1245). (This is also an allusion to the miracle of the dew on Gideon's fleece of wool. Judges 6.36-40). On two sides of the nave there are beautifully restored carved-wood side altars, stylistically matching the rest of the church. These include the altars of Hungary's saints made by F. Stufflesser of Tyrol. The stone paving was manufactured in the factory of József Walla. Before it was painted over, the inscription on the triumphal arch read, Regina Decor Carmeli ora pro nobis (Fair queen of the Carmel, pray for us.) The Church of St. Elizabeth of the House of Árpád, 1901 Rózsák tere, District Vll "It came to pan one day that it wai severely cold ... and ihe wai a-taking dome lejtöven, to the poor out&ide the ca&tle gate... when her father ipoke unto henaying, 'My daughter Elizabeth, whither goeit thou?' Whereupon the daughter oh the noble king wai abaihed ... and in her great diitren rejoined that, jam taking theie roiei with me’... Her hather looked in her 20
