Budavári Nagyboldogasszony-templom, Budapest

Matthias Church is a Catholic church on Holy Trinity Square, also known as the Church of the Assumption of the Buda Castle. Its present form comes from a late Gothic rebuilding in the latter part of the fourteenth century, followed by major work in the late nineteenth century under Frigyes Schulek. The building combines Gothic and Neo-Gothic character, but its history is even more striking than its stonework.

In 1686, cannon fire brought down part of the church wall during the siege of Buda. Behind it, an old votive statue of the Virgin Mary appeared. The Muslim soldiers had been praying in the building when the statue was revealed, and their morale collapsed; the city fell that same day.

The church later became a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1541, and was restored in Baroque form after Buda was retaken. Within these walls, Franz Joseph and Charles IV were crowned as kings of Hungary. The building is also associated with King Matthias, whose reign gave the church its familiar English name. Look at the richly patterned surfaces and the tall tower: they belong to a church repeatedly transformed by royal ambition, conquest, worship, and reconstruction.