St. Martin's Cathedral in Szekesfehervar

Szepeshely has an important religious role, being the centre of the Szepe diocese. ; The settlement was founded in the 11th century not far from a Benedictine monastery. It was the only church town in Hungary, with two outstanding architectural buildings – the bishop's palace and the cathedral – and a single street, the canons' row. ; A Romanesque church stood here as early as 1140, and in the 1200s it was made the seat of the Szepe provostship. It was then that the construction of the two-towered cathedral that still stands today began. The large-scale works took place from 1232 to 1275. The huge, three-nave basilica was expanded and transformed several times over the centuries. In 1382, the Corpus Christi Chapel was added, which was then replaced between 1488 and 1493 by the current Szapolyai Chapel, built on a French model, which houses the tombs of the eponymous family (the tombstone of István Szapolyai (†1499), and his brother, the lord of the Highlands, Imre (†1487), is also buried here. ; The cathedral's stone sculpture of the lion Leo Albus is the oldest of its kind in the Highlands – it has survived from the 13th century. ; There is a very important mural in the church: Mary crowns Charles Robert. The mural dating from 1317, found in the 1850s, has been unprofessionally restored several times. Its inscriptions tell us who it depicts: On the left, Tamás Semsey Frank, the castle captain of Spis, who was also the sword bearer of King Charles Robert, and then his own Róbert Károyl receives the crown placed on his head by Mary. On the other side of Mary and the baby Jesus are Archbishop Tamás of Esztergom and Provost Henrik of Szepeshely. The message of the mural was obvious to the people of the time: Charles the legitimate king continues the ideal of the "kingdom of Mary" of Saint Stephen. ; Its main altar was made in 1470, but was renovated during the re-Gothicization of the building. Its side altars have been preserved in their original state: the altar of Saint Michael from 1470, the altar of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary from 1477, and the altar of the Kneeling of the Three Kings from 1490. These works of art, which are several hundred years old, can still be seen in the Cathedral of Saint Martin in Szepes. ; After his murder in March 1553, István Mekcsey, who served as second captain during the Turkish siege of Eger Castle in 1552, was buried in the basilica served under István Dobó. ; The Jesuits who settled there in 1647 established a monastery and a gymnasium. Between 1662 and 1665, a protective wall reinforced with pentagonal towers was built around the basilica, which is still completely intact today. In 1776, it was elevated to the episcopal seat. The monastery was transformed into a seminary in the classicist style from 1810 to 1815. ; The building was transformed in the Baroque style between 1873 and 1889 to give it a medieval character, in keeping with the customs of the time.