Prakfalvi Endre: Roman Catholic Churches in Unified Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2003)
The St. Stephen Church (Basilica) of Lipótváros (Leopold Town), 1905
the Holy Spirit; "I shall pour forth my spirit"—effundam spiritum meum; Jl. 3.1), and at length St. John the Baptist (pointing at Jesus—Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world; the lamb in ornamental framing; Jn. 1.29). In the niches of the dome drum there are sculptural allegories of the cardinal virtues—Justitia, Fortitudo, Prudentia, Temperancia (Justice, Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance)—sculpted by Ede Mayer. The pendentive of the pillars supporting the dome are decorated with mosaics of the Evangelists. Matthew is in the dome segment above the pulpit; opposite are Mark, Luke and John with their attributes—an angel, an ox and an eagle (by Károly Lotz). On the bracing vault connecting the dome pillars there is a series of pictures representing the birth of Jesus, Jesus the teacher, Jesus the wonder-worker and Jesus resurrected. These are supplemented with the four fathers of the Greek church—SS John Chrysostom, Athanasius, Gregory of Nanzianz, Basil Major, and the portraits of four masters of scholastic philosophy, SS Albertus Magnus, Anselm, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas (the work of Ede Mayer). Below, in the niches of the dome pillars are statues of Hungary's saints—SS Ladislas (by János Fadrusz), Gellert and his ward Imre (by Alajos Stróbl), and Elizabeth of the House of Árpád (by Károly Senyei). Gyula Benczúr’s altarpiece in the side chapel of the right hand side transept, as one progresses towards the chancel, is of iconographic significance (portraying St. Stephen as he offers his crown to the Virgin Mary, Patrona Hungáriáé). Opposite in the transept to the left is the altar to the Holy Cross where the crucified Saviour is shown in a painting by Gyula Stetka. The pictures in the altars of the corner chapels depicting SS Cecilia, Imre, Joseph and Adalbert are by Róbert Nádler, György Vastagh Sr., Árpád Feszty and Ignác Roskovics. The mosaics on the ceiling of the holy of holies (iancta ianctorum) depict allegories from the mass representing its supplicatory, glorificatory and thanksgiving character. The fifth, in the middle, glorifying the Holy Sacrament, is the work of Gyula Benczúr. Ede Mayer’s large gilded bronze reliefs underneath the series of mosaics show the most momentous events in St. Stephen's life—Stephen as defender of Christianity (crushing the rebellion of Chief Koppány), the arrival of the crown brought to Hungary from Rome by archbishop Astrik, the foundation of the Pannonhalma monastery on St. Martin's Mount, and Stephen the teacher of good morals. The fifth one in the middle behind the altar shows the apotheosis of the sacred crown. The statue of St. Stephen standing beneath the colonnaded dome of the architectonic main altar was carved by Alajos Stróbl. Behind the chancel is a crescent-shaped chapel created with the sectioning 28
