The Gothic Protestant Church of Avas is the oldest building in the centre of the city of Miskolc in Northern Hungary. It was built in the 13th century as a small, Romanesque style church, and later it was expanded to a larger Gothic style church. In 1544, during the Ottoman occupation of Hungary the Turks set the church on fire. Because it was already a Protestant church, the Catholic owner of the Diósgyőr estate, Borbála Fánchy, didn't give her permission to use the wood from the nearby forests to rebuild the church, and it was rebuilt only more than twenty years later.
The organ of the church was built by József Angster in 1895. The acoustics of the church are very good, and concerts are held quite often.
The belfry was built in 1557. The bells have played a version of the Westminster Chimes every 15 minutes since 1941. Because of the noisy traffic, the chimes cannot be heard from too far away, however it is one of the best known sounds of the city. The National Theatre of Miskolc signals the beginning of a play with this sound.
The church is surrounded by a cemetery, where many famous sons of the city were buried, including the politicians Bertalan Szemere and László Palóczy, members of the Latabár actor dynasty, and the father of the poet Mihály Tompa.
Famous quotes containing the words gothic, protestant and/or church:
“I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“So the old flute was doomed and its fate was pathetic,
‘Twas fastened and burned at the stake as heretic,
While the flames roared around it they heard a strange
noise—
‘Twas the old flute still whistling ‘The Protestant Boys’.”
—Unknown. The Old Orange Flute (l. 37–40)
“You know, some of these folks look as queer in church as a mule does in the front parlor.”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)