Articular church

Articular is the name of Protestant wooden churches in Slovakia ( Upper Hungary ).

The Turks attacks forced the Emperor Leopold I, the Protestant Christians grant certain freedoms. Therefore Protestant congregations were allowed by the decisions of the Ödenburger Landtag from 1681 outside the city walls to build a specific location churches, which were allowed to have bells either Tower. They had to be built ( Resolutions » Artikuli " 25 and 26) without stones, bricks and metal nails. In addition, only one church in every free royal town and a maximum of two churches to be built in each county. As a result of these decisions arose total of 38 Protestant churches.

The churches were built after the model of the Trinity Church of Schweidnitz in Silesia in a cross shape, and had generally a barrel vault.

In total there are five articular Kežmarok ( Käsmark German, Hungarian Késmárk ) Svätý Kríž, Leštiny, Istebne and Hronsek receive and those in Kežmarok, Leštiny Hronsek and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The articular and structural limitations imposed on them can serve as a model for the provisions of the Patent of Toleration adopted 100 years later Joseph II.

The only Artikulargemeinde in what is now Austria was the Reformed congregation Oberwart.