2025The 950th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Abbey in Hronsky Benadik - First Day Cover

The monastery was founded in 1075, or possibly even a little earlier, by Géza I of Hungary. The core of the monastery was the Abbey church and monastery buildings around the so-called paradise courtyard on its southern side. The original Romanesque church, from the period when the monastery was established, was formed by a rather large three-nave building with three semicircular apses on the eastern side and a pair of towers on the western side. We only know the layout of the church from the archaeological excavations that took place here in the 1880s during the restoration of the Gothic church, built in the 14th century, on the site of its Romanesque predecessor. To this day, it still has a relatively coherent High Gothic form despite later modifications. The last substantial modification, that took place in 1881 after a fire in 1881, followed a neo-Gothic style.