Pannonholma Monastery

Some History…
The Archabbey of St. Martin in the town of Pannonholma was established by Benedictine missionaries from Italy and Bohemia in the year 996. The monks came at the invitation of Duke Geza, father of St. Stephen, first king of Hungary, in order to convert the pagan Magyar peoples. St. Stephen was crowned King of Hungary on Christmas day in the year 1000, and it was during the following year that he officially established the monastery by issuing a royal charter and charging the monks to spread the Christian faith and introduce European culture throughout Hungary.

During the Middle Ages, the monastery became a bastion of Hungarian culture and the Catholic faith.

The Abbey celebrated its 1000th anniversary in 1996, when it and its immediate natural surroundings were classified as part of the UNESCO World Heritage. This status recognizes the monastery’s religious and cultural importance both within and outside of Hungary.

Today, approximately 60 monks live and work in the monastery. They live according to the rules of St. Benedict, which includes a common prayer four times a day. They teach the approximately 350 boys who live and study in the boarding secondary school and train future Benedictine monks in the theological college.

During the Ottoman period of the 16th and 17th centuries, Pannonholma was used as a fortress against Turkish invaders. Monastic life stopped, surfacing only occasionally during times of peace. The Turks occupied the fortress three times, the last time being during the Turkish march to Vienna in 1683. All removable furnishings were destroyed during that time. Heavily damaged during the invasions, the Abbey was restored during the early part of the 18th century. Later in the same century, Emperor Joseph II, son of Maria Theresa, abolished all monastic life in Hungary because the monastic order did not produce tangible profits for the empire. It was restored two decades later in 1802, and the monks were asked to teach. During the last few months of the Second World War, Pannonholma was a shelter for children under the protection of the Red Cross. Over 2000 people refugees were hidden and protected here.

Our Visit
Even before we reached the small town of Pannonholma with its 3500 inhabitants, we could see the monastery from afar overlooking the town from its vantage point on the Holy Mount of Pannonia, located in the northern foothills of the Bakony Mountains.

The Abbey was influenced by Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, et neoclassical art and architecture over a period of 1000 years. The oldest sections of the monastery open to the public are the early Gothic church and crypt, which date back to the 13th century. Aside from the tombs of Princess Stephanie and her husband in the crypt, there is also a wooden throne covered by marble slabs. Legend states that St. Stephen, the founding King, made use of it during his visit to the Abbey. Also according to legend, men that were tall enough to sit in the throne with their feet touching the floor, would one day be king. Our guide asked all the men in the room to try it out. None of them would be king. The throne was enormous. (Later on, in Budapest, I saw a picture of St. Stephen sitting on a throne – but with a footstool, however. I thought of this legend. Perhaps he actually used a footstool at Pannonholma? Just a thought…)

The cloister at Pannonholma has been preserved in its original medieval form. The window traceries are copies; the original ones were destroyed. At the corner of the cloister is the Chapel of St. Stephen. The stained glass windows in the chapel show two important events from his life. The first is his baptism. The second is of the king nearing the end of his life and offering his crown and country to the Blessed Virgin. It is this window that I preferred.

The entrance hall of the church (the third since the founding of the monastery) has drawings which show the growth of the monastery over the last seven centuries. The interior of the church has ceiling frescoes, bronze statues, and wood carvings on the main altar.

The library was the last stop on our tour. It was built during the 1820-30’s after the reestablishment of monastic life at Pannonholma. A theological and educational academy functioned here from that time forward, but there was a need for an adequate library for the teachers and students. So the library was built. Its collection grows every year, and it currently has 365,000 volumes, including several rare books and 200 incunabula (printed books from before 1500). Most of the books are theological in nature, although there are also books that deal with Hungarian and European history and literature. The library’s archives contain the original establishing charter of Pannonholma as well as the first manuscript written in the Hungarian language.

The exhibition room in the library is large, architecturally beautiful, and impressive. On the four sides of the ceiling in the first hall are the four traditional faculties of a university: theology, medicine, philosophy, and law. In the center of the ceiling is the figure of Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of sciences and arts. Lining the hall are figures of Greco-Roman culture and Hungarian culture. The use of light in the building is rather interesting. Because it was built before the use of electricity and because the use of candlelight would have been dangerous, the architects had to make the most of natural light. They built the library facing west so that when the sun sets, it shines through the upper windows onto mirrors which reflect the light. We were unable, of course, to examine the books ourselves, but several were out on display behind glass cases. It was interesting, for example, to see how medical books used to be written and illustrated. The smaller books were kept at the top of the library, to be reached only be ladder, and the larger books were kept on the bottom shelves. The larger books were the most ancient, and being mostly handwritten, they were much larger and heavier than any of the books that we study and read today. We doubted if anyone actually uses these books today; some of them looked like they might fall apart if they were to be opened.

I think that the oldest books I had seen before were at the library of one of Stephane’s friends. He has a friend whose family actually owns a castle in the middle of the French Alps, at the top of a forested mountain. The guy has a name ten miles long, and the castle was so big that we spent days there without ever running into the other people that were staying there. Anyway, there was an old library there, and I spent time studying and admiring their collection. The oldest books I found dated from the early 17th century: French translations of entire Shakespeare collections dating from the 1600’s and histories of France (printed with permission of King Louis XIV) dating from before the French Revolution!