Seminárny kostol sv. Antona Paduánskeho / Seminary church of St. Anthony of Padua - Košice (East Slovakia) - Medieval Churches on Waymarking.com

Gothic-Baroque Seminary church of St. Anthony of Padua (Seminárny kostol sv. Antona Paduánskeho), the longest and second oldest church in Košice, was originally established by the Franciscans at the end of the 14th century.

St. Anthony was built for Franciscan order by aristocratic family Perényi of Perín. Preserved Gothic elements document an original beautiful plastic Gothic decorations of the church. The relief above the entrance, stone seats close to the altar and vaults above the sanctuary and former chancel (consecrated to St. Nicholas) are original. After the fire in 1556, church served as a military store-house and later as a cathedral of the bishop of Eger, who settled here during the occupation of Eger by Turks (1597-1671).

After return back into Franciscan' hands the church received a new consecration to St. Anthony of Padua. When Košice was appointed the bishopric in 1804, the renovated Franciscan monastery became a seminary, the church a seminary church but it also served for Franciscans and even Greek-Catholics until they built a church of their own.

The interior is reshaped in Baroque style, the main altar has a valuable baldaquin structure. The statue of St. Charles Borromeo, a patron of the seminary, is on its copula. The altar piece of Madonna with St. Anthony is work of Viennese painter Michael Unterberger. Almost all the altars, the pulpit and other moveables are from years 1760-1770. The epitaph of the field marshal F. Renaud from 1740 by G. R. Donner is especially valuable. The founder of the first University of Košice, the bishop of Eger, Benedikt Kisdy, was burried in the crypt under the main altar. All the crypts were plundered by soldiers after the World War II.