INTRODUCTION
The Roman Catholic church of the Virgin Mary with two towers built before 1217 is one of the sights of the village. Originally a Romanesque monastic church from the beginning of 13th century represents a late Romanesque building with unique Roman and early Gothic elements of European significance.
HISTORY
The church was created as part of the now-defunct Premonstratensian monastery around 1200 on the initiative of Omodej, before the crusade, to which he went with king Andrew II in 1217 or 1218. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the territory of Binet and the abandoned monastery were ruled by the Turks. The monastery complex was conquered in 1683 by Polish troops, which led to the destruction of most of the buildings. In the eighteenth century, the baroque reconstruction of the temple, and in the nineteenth century, the restaurant was made. Large destruction affected the building during World War II.
ARCHITECTURE AND FURNITURE
The church was built as a single-nave building with two towers in the west elevation. To the east, a rectangular chancel with a central apse and two smaller ones from the north and south was erected. The central apse consists of seven sides, the side ones are pentagonal. Their external facades are divided by blind arcades, and relatively high windows provide the lighting.
The church is unique because of its proportions, because the western part with the porch, towers and the internal gallery is longer than the nave with the apse. What’s more, the gallery (matroneum) is a kind of transition between the two-tower front and the nave. The inter-tower part was crowned with a cross-ribbed vault. The gallery also had an extension in the form of a tribune, occupying the entire western span of the nave. Small portals probably connected gallery with floors of the towers, it also had two semicircular altar niches, symmetrically placed in the thickness of the walls, constituting the base of the arcade, which the gallery opened onto the nave. The west façade originally had a large rose window, later covered by a high porch.
Inside there are rich romanesque decorations in the form of floral and figural motifs on consoles, brackets and bosses.
OPENING HOURS
January – April
Tuesday – Friday: 11:00 – 15:00
May – October
Monday – Saturday: 10:00 – 16:00
Sunday 13:00 – 16:00
November – December
Tuesday – Friday: 11:00 – 15:00
CONTACT
Roman Catholic Parish Office Bíňa
943 46 Bíňa, Slovak Republic
Phone: +421 36 759 91 22
Email: benyiplebania@parkany.sk
ENTRANCE FEES & GUIDED TOURS
Adults: od 2 €
Reduced admission fee: od 1 €
Guided Tours on request.
TOURIST INFORMATION OFFICE
Central Slovakia
Námestie SNP 1
974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic
Phone: +421 48 433 0850
E-Mail: info@centralslovakia.eu
Website: www.centralslovakia.eu
Regional Tourism Organisation Záhorie
Obecný úrad Smrdáky
906 03 Smrdáky, Slovak Republic
Phone: +421 905 421 859
E-Mail: oocr@zahorie.sk
Website: www.zahorie.info