Nyírbátor - Reformed Church

Having become rich during the Turkish wars, in 1484-88 István Báthori built on the castle mound a church dedicated to St George in which to house the family tomb. In the 16th C, the town was converted to the Calvinist faith, and members of the Reformed Church took over the now somewhat dilapidated building and restored it. The Báthori coat-of-arms stands above the west door, with a projecting tower at the side; the main Renaissance-style door is on the south side.

Remains of the walls of the old sacristy can still be seen on the north side. Inside the church, the visitor's eye will immediately be drawn to the filigree reticular vaulting in the roof of this single-aisled church with its large windows. The Renaissance influence which resulted from contacts made with the royal architects in Visegrád can be seen in the sculptural decoration in the sacramental niche, window and door-frames, the pew-niches in the choir and in various other details. The tomb in the choir is that of the writer István Báthori, who died in 1605; the founder of the church is interred under a marble gravestone in the crypt. The artistically decorated choir-stalls, which were carved in 1503-11 by a Florentine master craftsman, are kept in the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest. Near the church stands the shingle-clad bell-tower (1640) constructed of oak and representative of the type of tower found on many Reformed Churches in Hungary and Transylvania.