History
The church was built at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. During the Mongol invasion, the building was seriously damaged, requiring extensive renovations in the second half of the 13th century. As a result, the walls of the nave and the apses were rebuilt. The reconstruction from the gothic period is connected with further destruction of the church as a result of a fire. Perhaps it was related to the warfare from the beginning of the 14th century as part of the conflict between Matthew Csák and the Hungarian king. In this region, fighting took place around 1312.
Reformation and constant struggles in the 17th century also influenced the state of the church, because in 1694 it was mentioned as ruined and abandoned. In 1745 it underwent a baroque reconstruction, but to a large extent it retained his original romanesque appearance. In 1845, the gothic sacristy was demolished due to its poor condition and it was replaced with a new annex on the southern wall of the apse. In the years 1925-1926, the building was further renovated, the roof was replaced and the interior was renovated. Detailed research related to reconstruction was carried out in 1967-1968. As a result, all the plaster was removed, which brought the discovery of the bricked entrances to the nave, sacristy and romanesque windows. The final effect, however, left many doubts.
Architecture
The church was built as a small, single-nave brick building with a horseshoe-shaped apse on the eastern side. The outer facades were set on a plinth and decorated with pilaster strips, a decorative element typical of Romanesque buildings, between which small, semicircular closed windows were pierced. The entrance portal of a stepped, semicircular form was embedded in the southern wall of the nave. Inside, the apse was covered with a conch.
During the Gothic period, a sacristy was added on the northern side of the nave, and a wooden gallery was added inside the western part of the nave. During the reconstruction, the lower part of the window in the eastern wall of the apse was also bricked up.
Current state
The Romanesque church did not avoid several early modern transformations. The most striking are: the annex on the south side of the apse, the turret above the west facade, large windows in the nave and the new entrance portal on the west. The original Romanesque window has been preserved only in the eastern part of the apse, traces of the original bricked-up windows are also visible in the southern wall of the nave. Below, there is also a bricked up Romanesque, stepped portal.
The church has undergone renovation in recent years. Among other things, in 2012, the roofing was replaced and the turret was repaired. In 2014, the cement plaster that covered the church since the 20th century was removed and medieval details were revealed – the southern portal, the lower plinth of the walls and the eastern apse window. The entrances to the no longer existing northern sacristy and the pulpit were bricked up.
bibliography:
Website apsida.sk, Gáň.