Church of St. Barbara and Loreto Chapel

Church of St. Barbara and Loreto Chapel. In 1701, the Hungarian Palatine, Prince Paul Esterházy, invited the Franciscans to Žilina. Between 1723 and 1730 they built the Church of St. Barbara and the monastery. The church was situated on the outskirts of the town near the lower gate, which was the Franciscans' way of indicating their connection with the common people. The Church of St. Barbara is the first Baroque building of a sacral character in Žilina. It has valuable Baroque interior furnishings and decoration. All the altars are Baroque with original statues, but without original altarpieces. These date from the late nineteenth century and are the work of the Franciscan Conrad Švestka, who was a painter, carver and restorer. The main altar was commissioned in 1730 by the landowner Juraj Erdödy. The painting of the patroness of the church, St. Barbara, shows the tower of Budatín Castle as it looked at that time, still without a roof. The Moravian Countess Katarína Barbora Schidinská gave the sum of 7,000 gold coins for the construction of the Franciscan church and monastery in Žilina. This fact probably led to the choice of the patroness of the church. The organ in St. Barbara's Church deserves attention. It consists of a pair of instruments. The large organ was completed in 1734, the small organ was finished sometime after 1740. Both are the work of the important organ builder Peregrín Werner, who worked in the Žilina monastery. The Church of St. Barbara with its underground crypts was used for the burial of Franciscans, secular priests, laymen and prominent townspeople who requested it. The crypt under the main altar, the crypt under the Loreto chapel and the burial places directly in the ground served this purpose. For example, František, the executioner of Žilina, was buried in front of the altar of St. Francis. In the crypt of the Franciscan Church of St. Barbara is buried the Polish prince Peter Sapiegha, who took refuge in Žilina after the unrest in Poland and died here in 1771. The construction of the Franciscan monastery began in 1730. Many important personalities studied in the Franciscan monastery in Žilina, for example the famous Slovak Baroque writer Hugolín Gavlovič, the composer Edmund Pascha, the writer Rudolf Dilong and others. The building of the Franciscan monastery originally had only one floor. The second floor was built in 1924. The building was used for theological purposes. At present, the monastery premises are not in use. The Loreto Chapel was built between 1731 and 1732 on the site of the original gatehouse of the monastery. The construction was financed by the widow of Ladislav Suňog, Eva Horváth from Budatín Castle, for 500 gold coins. The author of the altars in the nave of the church and in the chapel is the eminent altar maker Master Anton Veisman from Frýdek. The Žilina Franciscan Loreto is a type of chapel that is part of the interior of the monastery complex and was built six years after the completion of the church. The loreto has a rectangular plan and is vaulted with a vaulted ceiling. The Loreto altar is located on the north wall of the chapel, which is plastered, while the south and east walls and the vault are made of cut brick with irregularly plastered areas. In the niche there is a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The statue of the Virgin Mary is not the traditional type of medieval black Madonna. The Zilina sculpture is clothed in a conical cloak, from which only the crowned heads of the Virgin Mary and the little Jesus protrude. Jesus' hands are in gesture - the right one in blessing and the left one holding a royal insignia in the form of an apple with a Greek cross. The faces of the Virgin Mary and the little Jesus have prominent large almond-shaped eyes, fuller cheeks, smiling lips and a distinctive gothic chin, presumably intended to resemble the sculpture's medieval original. Their hairstyles, however, are baroque. Mary's long locks are styled into an intricate tied up hairstyle, and her hair has pearls and cut stones. Baby Jesus has short curls of hair combed back. During the restoration of the chapel, a significant discovery was made when the original Baroque figural wall paintings were identified. These discoveries radically changed the restoration process. On the basis of them, it was possible to reconstruct the form of the unrecognised vanished altar dividing wall and return the chapel to its original form. The uniqueness of the find lies not only in the artistic quality of the murals, but also in the fact that it is the only find of its kind in the city so far. The murals represent Marian scenes of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus and figures of other saints. The paintings are characterised by great delicacy in detail, depth and plasticity of rendering. In the Franciscan monastery in Žilina, the altar of Our Lady of Loreto is part of a uniquely preserved Baroque furnishing that transcends the region in its significance. The Žilina Loreto, as a representative of a specific phenomenon of Marian veneration in our territory from the High Baroque period, is one of them after restoration.