St Stephen's Basilica and the Holy Right
Why is it significant?
Step back across Szent István tér until the whole facade fits in your view: two bell towers, a portico of columns, and behind them a dome that seems to sit on the sky. This is the largest church in Budapest, and it very nearly did not survive its own construction.
Key Facts
| Place | St Stephen's Basilica and the Holy Right |
|---|---|
| Address | Szent István tér 1, 1051 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.50080, 19.05400 |
| Part of Walk | Crown, Dome and River: Budapest's Parliament, St Stephen's Basilica & the Danube Bank |
| Generated | Generated |
Step back across Szent István tér until the whole facade fits in your view: two bell towers, a portico of columns, and behind them a dome that seems to sit on the sky. This is the largest church in Budapest, and it very nearly did not survive its own construction.
Work began in 1851 under the architect József Hild. He died in 1867, and a few months later, in January 1868, the dome came crashing down. Miklós Ybl took over, cleared the ruins and redesigned the church in a grander neo-Renaissance style. Ybl died in 1891 and József Kauser finished the job. From first stone to completion took fifty-four years, until 1905. No wonder Budapest still uses a saying about things that will be done when the Basilica is finished.
Measure the dome against the Parliament you saw earlier: both are ninety-six metres high. Church and state, equal in height, and for a long time the city centre was meant to have nothing taller. Climb the hundreds of steps to the gallery around the dome and the whole of Pest lies flat at your feet, with Buda's hills beyond the river.
Inside, in a chapel to the left of the altar, lies the strangest treasure in Hungary: the Holy Right, the mummified right hand of King Stephen. Stephen was crowned around the year 1000 and declared a saint in 1083, and legend says his right hand was found uncorrupted when his tomb was opened. It wandered for centuries, reaching Ragusa, today's Dubrovnik, before Empress Maria Theresa brought it back in 1771. In 1944 it was taken west to Austria and returned by the Americans in 1945. Every 20 August it is carried around this square in procession.
Now walk away from the doors, straight down Zrínyi utca towards the river. The street frames a view of the Buda hills, and at its end it opens into a square named after the man the Hungarians call the greatest of them all.