Resistance to oppression

Urbán, Erzsébet and Vukoszávlyev, Zorán (2016) Resistance to oppression. In: 14th International DoCoMoMo Conference, 2016.09.06-2016.09.09, Lisszabon.

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Abstract

After the Second World War the status of the churches took a significantly different direction in Western and East-Central Europe. With the communist takeover new social order emerged, whose aim was to liquidate Christian Piety. Besides weakening the economic influence of churches, their public-, political- and educational activities were suppressed. The anti-clerical politics affected ecclesiastical architecture, thus church architecture, too. The State Office of Church Affairs was responsible for supervising the churches. This process took a turn in 1963, when the status of Catholicism began to normalize. Hungarian government reached out to the Vatican and a partial agreement was conducted, first among the countries of the Socialist Block. The Catholic Church had to face strong political pressure. In most settlements worship and church building could only be performed disguised. Immediately after the war, new churches were hardly possible to build. Obtaining state permission for community centres, schools was easier, thus often the church stood behind those developments. New community centres were rebuilt as churches with the slackening of the central influence. The transformation process of the society is well modelled by the architectural tendency shift. As a result of the liturgical and religious reforms, church architecture required a new vision. Compared to the innovative church buildings in Western Europe experienced in the 50s, in Hungary the form experiments began slowly and in small numbers. While fighting for existence, renewing the churches in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council seemed less important. In many places the effects of the new regulations applied only a decade later, furthermore, insistence to the old remained important to the believers. Architecturally high-quality works experimenting with new space forms appeared only in the mid- 70s. The study provides insight to the church buildings of the Eastern Block during the political oppression.

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