Saint Paul or the Assumption of Mary? Observations and reflections on the patron saint of the Kalocsa Cathedral

Abstract

The literature on the Middle Ages firmly holds that, just like in the case of the Bács cathedral, St Paul the Apostle was also the patron saint of the Kalocsa cathedral and the Archbishopric of Kalocsa. Medieval documents refer to the (larger) Church of St Paul in Kalocsa. Despite this, modern documents nowhere mention the Church of St Paul or its ruins in Kalocsa, but they do refer to the then already ruined Assumption Cathedral of Kalocsa. It is hard to imagine that the patron saint of one of the most important churches in the country, and the Archbishop of Kalocsa, would have disappeared so quickly and without a trace by the modern era, and the orientation of the cathedral is also a telling sign. A possible solution is that the Kalocsa Cathedral, in addition to the Assumption of Mary, also had St Paul the Apostle as its patron saint. The theory is therefore worth considering that the patronage of St Paul, because of its uniqueness and the attachment to Bács, was at one time more prominent in Kalocsa, even though the main cathedral there was originally built in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was taken up into heaven.