Archeological exhibition

In the cellar of the Peasant House an archeological exhibition can be visited with the following title: "From the abbey Cikador to the parish church of Bátaszék".

The excavation works, led by dr. Valter Ilona had found the remains of the first Hungarian Cistercian church.

Géza II established the first time in Hungary a Cistercian abbey in 1142 in the sometime Szék. The monks, arriving from Austria played an important role in the drainage and the desiccation of the vicinity. They had built the first Hungarian channel and the acclimatization of grape and wine culture in our region is attached to their names as well.

The church and the joint friary had been built with the today existing "mother-abbey" of Heiligenkreutz as a model: a building with three naves, cross-built, with a shrine with straight closing. Because of lack of stone in the region brick had been used here as building material. For the threshold of the gateway, made in Romanesque style marble gravestones had been used, found in the roman ruins in the countryside.

The Tartars had burnt the building-ensemble in 1241-42 to ashes. From the church, rebuilt in the 14th century there are door-frames, painted window-frames subsisted. At that time had the main nave got desks, decorated with deer, or rather unicorn, the aisle had been covered with brick without decoration.

In the shrine and the cross-nave marble grave stones of abbots and worldly notabilities were to be found. On the exhibition we can see details and photos from this era.

To the end of the 14th century the abbey had weakened. In the 15th century Benedictine monks had settled down here.

After the lost battle in 1526 at Mohács the church and the monastery had been formed into pale-castle. In 1529 the Turks demolished the pale and occupied the building. In the main nave of the church living-niches had been built, the shrine had been formed into a djami of sultan Sulejman, a minaret had been built to its south-eastern corner. 

The findings of the Turkish-era are on display on the exhibition in two glass exhibition-cases.

The region had been liberated from the Turkish rule in 1687. The orders haven’t applied for the monastery, so the rulers gave it to the worldly priests together with the abbot title.

The fully emptied region had been resettled firstly by Jány Jakab Ferdinánd with Serbs (1711) and later with Germans (1718).

The Catholic settlers needed a church though, so Jány had made the shrine of the ruinous church covered and made it appropriate for celebrating masses. His posterior, Kollonich Zsigmond, cardinal of Vienna had finished the building works: the church, built on the ruins had been finished for 1741.

The frontlet and the font of the baroque church together with more baroque statues are to be seen on the exhibition.

To the middle of the XIXth century the dynamically developing settlement had outgrown its church. A new, neogothic church had been built, and consecrated in 1903, and the building next to it had been broken down after that. The small chapels of the surrounding settlements had been built from the furniture and building material of the demolished church. 

The excavation of the Cistercian abbey took place between 1994 and 2001. The ruin-garden, formed from the excavated parts of the building had been consecrated 17 August 2001. Together with the beautiful new church, rising above the settlement, the ruin-garden is worth to be visited as well.

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