Church, convent and hospital of the Order of Mercy

According to Tivadar Ortvay, "The upper part of the Market Square was called the Square of the Merciful (Barmherzigenplatz) until recent times, until 1879, because its eastern side is covered by the monastery and hospital building of the Merciful."; "The Order of Mercy settled in Bratislava in 1672 under Emperor Leopold I, following the instructions of Archbishop George Szelepcsényi. Their monastery, church and spacious garden cover a total area of 3,719 square acres, or 3 (1,200 square acres) acres and 119 square acres. They have been receiving donations from the city since February 15, 1680. Their church was built in 1692, mostly at the expense of Baron János Maholány, and was completed in its present form together with the monastery in 1728. The monastery has a well-equipped pharmacy and a spacious hospital for male patients under careful supervision. It has an internal medicine and surgical department. Its annual patient turnover is 6-7 hundred inpatients and about 3,000 outpatients. It has many cases of tooth extractions, about 5-6 thousand per year. The chief physician's duties in earlier times it was performed by a lay doctor of the order, today a visiting doctor. The church is also a garrison church. The monastery was also the seat of the Hungarian Imperial Order of Mercy from 1882 to 1903." ; On the website of Father Imre Kozma we can read this: "The Order of Mercy (Ordo Fratres Misericordiae), which was established in 1650, played a major role in building the network of hospitals in Hungary. They established the first pharmacies. They were the first to deal with the treatment of the mentally ill, and in the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century, government decrees entrusted the care of epidemic patients almost exclusively to the hospitals of the Order of Mercy. The treatment and isolation conditions were the best here. ; The Order of Mercy, which even Joseph II did not abolish, was one of the few exceptions, precisely because of its "usefulness" and outstanding merits for the common good, which he himself recognized. ; The first house of the Order was established in Szepesváraljá in 1650, and then it founded its hospitals one after another. Bratislava (1669), Eger (1726), Pest (1731), Timisoara (1737), Pápa (1757), Kismarton (1760), Nagyvárad (1760), Vác (1778), Szakolca (1796), Pécs (1796), Bratislava II. (1802), Zagreb (1804), Buda (1806), Szatmárnémeti (1834). ; The Bratislava monastery and hospital were established with the powerful financial support of Prince Primate György Szelepcsényi. Some consider this to be the oldest house in our country, since it was founded by Prince Primate György Szelepcsényi, known for his philanthropic sentiments, and the establishment of the Order of Mercy in Hungary is also attributed to him. ; The retreating Turkish army besieging Vienna ravaged the city and the hospital in 1683. In 1685, Prince-Primate Szelepcsényi donated 1,040 forints to the Order, and in 1688 he purchased the Csáky house and the adjacent land for them. Thus, a church could be built for them in 1699. Later, in 1723, Cardinal Lipót Kolonics bought the house of Baron János Moholányi, on whose land a large monastery and hospital were built. This was also equipped with a large pharmacy. The buildings were rebuilt in 1728 with the help of the Provincial Council. Some documents mention this with praise, so it is no coincidence that János Justus Torkos's "Taxa posoniensis", the first professional collection of price rules, originated from here. ; Bratislava County, in the 19th century At the beginning of the 19th century, it was called the golden garden of the homeland, and its number of hospitals rivaled that of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County. The hospital of the Brothers of Mercy was the largest in Bratislava at that time, where a separate hospital section was available for convalescents. The hospital situation in Hungary in the 19th century, although many hospitals were built, painted a picture of exclusion around illness. The vision of a waiting room full of dying patients had an alarming effect. The aversion to hospitals was so great that the village people considered going to the hospital to be a bigger blow than the illness itself. The operation of the Brothers of Mercy changed this picture with the high standard of its nursing activities and its selfless patient care. For example, the “innovation” of the Brothers of Mercy was that only one patient could lie in one bed. In 1848, there were 92 hospitals in operation in Hungary, with approx. 3,000 beds. Only St. Rókus of Pest, the Order of Mercy in Buda and Bratislava, and the Szeged City Hospital had more than a hundred beds. Of the 3,000 beds, 453 were owned by the Order of Mercy, which was 15.1% of the national bed count at the time. ; In 1856, the Independent Hungarian Province of the Order was established with 13 institutions. Palatine Stephen and Baron József Eötvös, Minister of Religion and Public Education, separated the Hungarian hospitals of mercy from the Austrian province by decree dated 5 September 1848 and declared the establishment of an independent Hungarian Province of the Order of Mercy. On the proposal of Prince-Primate János Scitovszky, the Holy See approved the separation on 14 March 1856. The Hungarian Province of the Order was placed under the protection of the Blessed Virgin, with its seat in Bratislava. ; By his decree of 6777/1887, Cardinal János Simor, Prince-Primate, made the carrying of the Holy Right in the procession on St. Stephen's Day an official of the Order of Mercy. Accordingly, until 1943 – with the exception of a few years – the Merciful carried the Holy Right in the processions. ; The seat of the Autonomous Hungarian Province of the Order was moved to Budapest in 1903.