Tihany, Benedictine Abbey

The Benedictine abbey of Tihany is located in the Western part of Hungary on the peninsula in Lake Balaton. The Benedictine abbey of Tihany is a prominent example of a church serving the private representation of its royal founder. Its crypt has preserved its original, eleventh-century construction and the sepulchral monument of its founder, András I. The foundation charter of the abbey is of exceptional importance from linguistic point of view, since it is the earliest written record extant of the Hungarian language. The special siting of its Baroque church and monastery on the peninsula of Lake Balaton make it one of the most attractive monastic monuments for tourists.

The Benedictine abbey of Tihany was founded in 1055 by András I. in honour of the Virgin Mary and the bishop Saint Ányos. The royal founder of the abbey found his final place of rest in the crypt of the abbey in 1060, his burial-stone has been preserved intact. The foundation charter of the abbey, safeguarded in the archive of the arch-abbacy of Pannonhalma, is the earliest written record extant of the Hungarian language. The abbey ceased to exist in 1534.

It was reconstructed in the years of the Turkish Occupation to meet the requirements of a border-line fortification. Out of the medieval building we have only the three-nave crypt of rectangular termination. The simple covering plates of its round pillars and a fragment of a capital with palmette-decoration link it with the atelier that was entrusted with the construction of the cathedral in Veszprém. In the works of this atelier we can observe simultaneously the structural base of the southern German monasteries and the Byzantine and Venetian patterns in the elaboration of the details.

The arch-abbacy of Pannonhalma received back the abbey in 1716. Villebald Grassó was the in charge of the reconstruction works of the totally demolished building. From the 1740s on, the completion of the reconstruction works became the responsibility of the abbot Ágoston Lécs. He was the one who commissioned the two towers and the figural decoration of the main façade. This was the period when the northern wall, the one that produces the famous ‘Tihany echo’, of the church was constructed.

The basement of the church was reinforced in 1889 following the plans of Gyõzõ Czigler. The painting of the high altar made by Lajos Deák Ébner and the frescos of the ceiling of the sanctuary and of the triumphal arch painted by Bertalan Székely and Károly Lotz are also products of the late nineteenth century. In 1994 the Benedictine order received back the abbey again, and since then its buildings house the Benedictine Abbey Museum.

More Information on Hungarian Monasteries: Hungarian Monastic Cultural Route