Church of Holy Trinity in Mošovce
Encyclopedia
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
Church of Holy
Sacred
Holiness, or sanctity, is in general the state of being holy or sacred...
Trinity
Trinity
The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
in Mošovce
Mošovce
Mošovce is one of the largest villages in the historical region of Turiec, currently in the Turčianske Teplice District in the Žilina Region of northern Slovakia.-History:Many preserved historical buildings are the evidence of the 770 years of its existence...
was with a tower
Tower
A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....
, which was the dominant feature of its surroundings, and it belonged to the most monumental sacral
Church architecture
Church architecture refers to the architecture of buildings of Christian churches. It has evolved over the two thousand years of the Christian religion, partly by innovation and partly by imitating other architectural styles as well as responding to changing beliefs, practices and local traditions...
building
Building
In architecture, construction, engineering, real estate development and technology the word building may refer to one of the following:...
s in Turiec
Turiec
Turóc , , /comitatus Thurociensis) is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary...
.
The tower
Tower
A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....
, a significant dominant of the town
Town
A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...
, fulfilled several roles: The town and its surroundings resounded with the ringing of its four bells
Church bell
A church bell is a bell which is rung in a church either to signify the hour or the time for worshippers to go to church, perhaps to attend a wedding, funeral, or other service...
. The largest one – Obecný, was cast in 1704 and weighed 900 kg, the second one was called Odschod, the third one Median, and the fourth, which weighed 70 kg, bore the name of Umrláč. A tiny bell was located separately in the church wall.
The tower, situated at the church’s main façade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
, was built separately facing west, and had a rectangular
Rectangle
In Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is any quadrilateral with four right angles. The term "oblong" is occasionally used to refer to a non-square rectangle...
ground plan of 8,6 x 7,2 m. Its height of 45 meters had to be supported by the thickness of the wall
Wall
A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air...
s, with three of them being 1,5 m thick, and the fourth, common with the church wall, measuring 1,2 m. This thickness can also be observed today at the remnants of the tower wall. The basic building material was square and raw stone
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
. The corners were accentuated by stone blocks. The tower was covered with a low pyramid
Pyramid (geometry)
In geometry, a pyramid is a polyhedron formed by connecting a polygonal base and a point, called the apex. Each base edge and apex form a triangle. It is a conic solid with polygonal base....
-shaped roof
Roof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
with the original shingle
Roof shingle
Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat rectangular shapes laid in rows from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive higher row overlapping the joints in the row below...
covering.
Window
A window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...
s were located at two thirds of its height and were finished with arch
Arch
An arch is a structure that spans a space and supports a load. Arches appeared as early as the 2nd millennium BC in Mesopotamian brick architecture and their systematic use started with the Ancient Romans who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures.-Technical aspects:The...
s. Under the windows, on three sides of the wall (southern, western and northern), ticked a tower clock. The predecessor of this clock was an ancient sundial
Sundial
A sundial is a device that measures time by the position of the Sun. In common designs such as the horizontal sundial, the sun casts a shadow from its style onto a surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. The style is the time-telling edge of the gnomon, often a thin rod or a...
situated in the southern side of the church wall.
By the end of the 19th century, the church, at that time almost 600 years old, was considerably damaged and run-down. Because it was built on a marshland, the 1,5 m thick stone gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
vault
Vault (architecture)
A Vault is an architectural term for an arched form used to provide a space with a ceiling or roof. The parts of a vault exert lateral thrust that require a counter resistance. When vaults are built underground, the ground gives all the resistance required...
began to crack on many places in spite of being secured by thick stone pillar
Column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...
s at the sides of the church.
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
František Révay
Révay
The Révay Family was a Hungarian noble family, who owned estates in Turóc county, the Kingdom of Hungary until the early 20th century. Their property included i.a...
– ordered its demolition.
Unlike its predecessor, the new neogothic
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
church, which was created at the same site, took only 2 years to build (1912-1913). The building methods of the historizing sacral
Church architecture
Church architecture refers to the architecture of buildings of Christian churches. It has evolved over the two thousand years of the Christian religion, partly by innovation and partly by imitating other architectural styles as well as responding to changing beliefs, practices and local traditions...
architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
were considerably close to today’s procedures. To secure the stability
Directional stability
Directional stability is stability of a moving body or vehicle about an axis which is perpendicular to its direction of motion. Stability of a vehicle concerns itself with the tendency of a vehicle to return to its original direction in relation to the oncoming medium when disturbed away from...
of the church, it was built on a thick concrete slab. The new church is displaced from its predecessor by a couple of meters in the southwestern direction. The new church has three aisle
Aisle
An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of seats on both sides or with rows of seats on one side and a wall on the other...
s, and a lateral, hexagonal tower, which accommodates a staircase leading to the church gallery
Loft
A loft can be an upper story or attic in a building, directly under the roof. Alternatively, a loft apartment refers to large adaptable open space, often converted for residential use from some other use, often light industrial...
.
Originally, the old tower
Tower
A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....
was left intact. After a closer examination, however, it was found that it was leaning – it diverged 45 cm from the vertical
Vertical direction
In astronomy, geography, geometry and related sciences and contexts, a direction passing by a given point is said to be vertical if it is locally aligned with the gradient of the gravity field, i.e., with the direction of the gravitational force at that point...
. Because of fears of its collapse, on 21 June 1913 it was decided that the old tower would be demolished, and a new one would be built in its place. As a support of this decision, Baron
Baron
Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
Révay
Révay
The Révay Family was a Hungarian noble family, who owned estates in Turóc county, the Kingdom of Hungary until the early 20th century. Their property included i.a...
donated 80.000 crown
Austro-Hungarian krone
The Krone or korona was the official currency of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1892 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918...
s for its construction. However, during the demolition the adjacent wall of the newly built church began to crack, and therefore the tower
Tower
A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....
wall
Wall
A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air...
had to be rebuilt up to the height of the top of the church roof, and is still standing there in symbiosis
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
with the church.