Matits Ferenc: Protestant Churches - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2003)
The seventeenth district, which is the easternmost on the Pest side and includes Rákoscsaba, Rákoskeresztúr, Rákosliget and Rákoshegy, was joined to Budapest in 1950 and has been the largest district of the capital ever since. The 1970s brought great changes in the life of these four neighbourhoods, whose quasi- rural appearance is dominated by their gardens and detached houses. Rákoskeresztúr was made the focus of the whole area and a housing estate was built around the town centre here, which is why its population increased drastically. There are independent Calvinist parishes in Rákoscsaba, Rákosliget and Rákoshegy. Rákoskeresztúr is an outparish of Rákosliget. Many of the Rákoskeresztúr congregation attended church in Rákosliget, or held service and Bible-study classes at more or less regular intervals in the school of Rákoskeresztúr and, from 1990 on, in the Lutheran church built by Gyula Sándy in 1943. The presbytery requested a plot for a church from the municipality in 1990. In 1994 the authorities decided to lease, free of charge for 99 years, a 6640-yard plot in Újlak utca, owned by the municipality of Budapest, to the Calvinist parish for the purposes of church construction. Of three competitive designs, the one made by József Cseh was selected, because that one conformed best to the characteristics of the plot. Cseh, who had previously acted as warden of the North Budapest episcopal see, had also designed a belfry next to the Dunaharaszti church in 1991. In 1990, the parish was visited by Dr. Arthur Caliandro, pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York. The American minister pledged a donation of a hundred thousand dollars in support of the congregation planning to build its church. The Gustav Adolf Werk pitched in and financial aid also came from Switzerland, Scotland, Ireland and Finland. Hundreds of Hungarian believers, too, contributed to the church construction fund. Work started on 26 July 1995 and the three-storey building was brought under roof in the autumn of 1996. In the basement of the building, whose every level has a floor space of 200 square metres, is an urn hall with a floor covered with white marble slabs. The youth of the congregation were given two rooms on the ground floor where a guest room and a 100-seat congregation hall can also be found. It was in the latter that services were held from the autumn of 1998; musical accompaniment to the hymns sung was provided by a two-manual organ here. The eight-metre high church, which is fitted with wall-to-wall carpeting, is on the first floor. It is not only by way of the windows The Calvinist Church of Rákoskeresztúr Újlak utca, District XVII 66
