Edinost in Dialog (Aug 2022)
»How do the Sobota Church Bells Ring?« Murska Sobota in Coexistence Between Catholics, Lutherans and Jews
Abstract
Between 1908 and 1912, Murska Sobota got three new churches. For a town that changed its rural image into an urban district centre at the turn of the century, these represented a remarkable architectural surplus. In the spirit of Secession, the completely rebuilt Catholic Church of St. Nicholas, today's cathedral, is an important building achievement of the local architect Ladislav Takač. The neo-Gothic complex of the Evangelical Church, with a rectory and a cantor's house, enriched the image of the main town street. Not far away, a magnificent synagogue, designed by the famous architect of such buildings in the Hungarian area Lipót Baumhorn, got its place. The new church buildings were an external expression of the power and importance of the three religion communities, whose dignitaries held important positions in the town's administrative, financial and school institutions, and were one of the driving forces of the town's economic and cultural development. Regardless of the number of believers, among whom Catholics predominated, the equal coexistence of three religious communities had a significant impact on the development of Murska Sobota in the period from the second half of the 19th century to the Second World War. Of course, tolerant coexistence was not a permanent state. Changing political situation, exclusionary and politically based legislation, the prevailing political affiliation of members of different religious groups and their prevailing national identification, historical resentments, prejudices, ignorance – these are all elements that need to be considered if we want to create a more comprehensive picture of their relations. In this article, I especially emphasize the relations between religious groups according to their prevailing national identity. We are talking about the time of the emergence of nationalisms associated with the formation of nation-states in the 19th century. That ultimately resulted in the collapse of one multinational monarchy, the emergence of a new multinational monarchy, part of which Prekmurje became in 1919, and revisionist Hungarian politics, that joined the Triple Alliance to achieve its national goals.
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