The Church of the Virgin Mary in Deáki
Building, structure
The most notable place in Deáki is the ancient church built in honor of the Virgin Mary, which was first mentioned in the charter of Pope Paschal II in 1103, but is also referred to in several later documents – in 1175, 1186 and 1211. The church at that time – the date of construction is unknown – initially served as a chapel. The later, Romanesque-era, majestic Deáki church – along with the older Garamszentbenedek monastery church dating from 1075 – can be architecturally ranked among the most precious buildings of this type in Central Europe.
;In his essay on the Church of the Virgin Mary, Arnold Ipolyi drew attention to three aspects: it is one of the most common, almost exemplary, pieces of ecclesiastical architecture in the 10th–12th century Romanesque basilica style in our country. A typical example of one of the peculiarities of monastic architecture – known only in Hungary. The church contains one of the oldest, definitely datable remains of church wall paintings in our country.
;The church is a typical work of art of the so-called Romanesque brick architecture. The use of this material was justified by the fact that not enough stone was found in the area. The building was not plastered for a long time, which further enhanced its impressive appearance. The walls were characterized by brick decoration, such as the cornice, the vertical pillars, i.e. the pilasters, and the wall strips, the lisens. The church in Deák – as the largest brick building – served as a model for the construction of churches in the area, and even in Csallóköz. Its probable builder was Abbot Uriás (Uros), who was the definite leader of the abbey; the church was consecrated – as we wrote – in 1228.
;The oldest part is the St. Stephen's Chapel, which is connected to the main building on the south side. It is a typical early Romanesque building, with a rectangular nave and a semicircular apse and sanctuary. The nave is now covered with a beamed ceiling, the apse is a quarter-spherical masonry vault, called a concha. The thickness of the main walls reaches one meter.
;The total length of the chapel does not exceed ten meters. It is believed that this is the first building here, mentioned as early as 1103. This is supported by the main gate discovered on the south side of the facade in the last century. On the south side of the chapel's apse were typical Romanesque, slit-like windows. The south wall was decorated with a high, saw-toothed cornice, and the apse was decorated with a narrowly toothed cornice field.
;The most significant surface of today's Deák church from an art historical perspective is the two-storey, three-nave part consecrated in 1228, which formed a space 19.5 metres long and 10.75 metres wide. The nature of the sacred building can be deduced from the worship customs and church art traditions of the monks of the Order of Saint Benedict.
;The northeast-southwest oriented, three-nave church – without a transept – is closed off on the east side by a triple sanctuary. The squat Romanesque towers, standing as guards on both sides of the western facade, enclose the triangular pediment of the central nave. The main nave was separated from the narrower side naves by high pillared arcades. The central nave is twice as wide as each side naves. The ratio of the length of the church to the total width is the same as three to two, so it follows the rule of the golden ratio. The eastern end of each naves is closed by a semicircular altar niche, but the middle one is wider and protrudes further than the other two. The sanctuary is divided into two levels, the so-called lower and upper churches. This solution is also rare in Central Europe.
;The Deák Basilica is completely different from similar Romanesque buildings primarily because its three naves are of equal height. The middle one does not rise above the two side naves, which is why it is also called a hall church. This solution was chosen so that the builders could create another three-nave space above the vault.
;The indicators of the floor plan of the upper church are the same as those of the lower one. The main nave is separated from the side naves by a wall with irregularly placed openings. The distances between them are not the same and do not correspond to the division of the arcades below them. The triple division of the eastern apses of the upper part is repeated, but the side apses are smaller.
;Two original medieval wall paintings were found on the wall surface between the Romanesque windows of the central apse. One depicts Christ giving a blessing and holding a book with an almond-shaped halo. The other – presumably with a mandorla – was an image of God the Father. The missing dove of the Holy Spirit above them could have been the subject of the wall painting, representing the Holy Trinity. The iconography, the design and the coloring show a 13th century representational practice. In the 19th century, the images were still recognizable, although in their day they were much more difficult to recognize.
;According to Arnold Ipolyi, the central nave was a chapel or oratory for the separate worship of the Benedictine monks living in the Deák grangia, in which they performed their devotions, recited the rosary, meditated or read the holy books separately from the faithful. The side naves – since they could not have been separate monastic cells or dining rooms – certainly served as common dormitories. Although Ipolyi's previous explanation, published in 1860, has some weaknesses, there has been no more convincing explanation for the upstairs part of the Deák church since then.
;The importance of the basilica is increased by the fact that the three-nave church has survived – without any significant reconstruction – although the towers of its western facade were raised in the Baroque period and covered with new spires. Their current height is 31.5 meters. The bells were placed on the third level, among them the so-called great bell weighs 549 kilograms and was cast in 1923 by the Fischer brothers from Nagyszombat. In the meantime – between 1872 and 1875 – during the administration of Kruesz Krizosztom, the abbot of Pannonhalma, the church was expanded. At that time, the temporary committee of monuments – members of which were such prominent personalities of the time as Hegedűs Candid, Arányi Lajos, Henszlmann Imre, Pulszky Ferenc, Schulek Frigyes and Zsigmondy Gusztáv – rejected the plans of the two architects, Schulek Ferenc and then Storno Ferenc, and entrusted Schulek Frigyes with the planning and management of the works. During the construction – adapting to the Romanesque style – a new three-nave hall, capable of accommodating about three thousand people, was built in the neo-Romanesque style, connecting to the western facade of the ancient church. The old church building remained almost untouched.
;The ancient and new churches – primarily thanks to the great design and architectural work – are united in the nave, their boundary line being marked primarily by the towers. The longitudinal axis of the building has grown to forty-eight meters, and its hall has become a sanctuary. On the ground floor of the old church, in the main apse, you can see the painting The Coronation of the Virgin Mary, created by Ernő Jeges in 1941. The five stained glass windows placed in the apses of the former chapel, which served as a sanctuary, depict scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary, the patron saint of the church. The glass panels were made in Würzburg in 1875. At that time, a pulpit with a standing figure of Saint John the Baptist, also a Würzburg creation, was added to the first pillar of the central nave of the expanded church.
;Twelve crosses, together with candlesticks, were placed on the main walls of the building, signifying the basilica character and dignity of the church. The old sacristy at the northern apse was demolished, and the new one was built in the staircase leading to the upper floor of the Romanesque church. The medieval wall painting fragments in the St. Stephen's Chapel were painted in 1941, during the next major renovation of the church. Most of the interior furnishings, the neo-Romanesque altar table made of marble, the bronze door of the tabernacle, the wooden benches and the wrought iron grille, date from this period.
;The old and new walls of the church interior are decorated with wall paintings depicting certain events in the life of our first king, which were created by the painter Béla Kotuly in 1941. The themes of the frescoes are: Saint Stephen, the spreader of Christianity, Saint Stephen, the general, The handing over of the charter of Pannonhalma, The monk writing the funeral oration, Saint Stephen giving the Exhortations to his son, Imre, Saint Stephen offering the country to the Virgin Mary after Imre's death. Béla Kotuly also created some of the murals of the renovated church, drawing their subject matter from the New Testament, the lives of King Saint Stephen and Saint Benedict. The creators of the sculptures are Walter Madarasi and Martin Holych.
;The other parts of the interior are mostly from the 19th century. The organ was built by the master Angster from Pécs.
; In the Church of the Virgin Mary in Deák – similarly to the early Christian basilica-style buildings – Byzantine and Western Roman culture meet. The huge, double-church basilica of Deákmonostor is “a mirror of the ancient culture and art of a nation.” It is not only one of the most precious historical monuments of the Hungarian people, but also a spiritual and intellectual heritage that proves the depth of the thousand-year-old Hungarian statehood and art, and most importantly: its independence, far beyond the country's current borders.