Between 1908 and 1912, Murska Sobota got three new churches. For a town that
changed its rural image into an urban district centre at the turn of the century, these repre-
sented a remarkable architectural surplus. In the spirit of Secession, the completely rebuilt Catholic Church of St. Nicholas, today's cathedral, is an important building achievement
of the local architect Ladislav Takač. The neo-Gothic complex of the Evangelical Church,
with a rectory and a cantor's house, enriched the image of the main town street. Not far
away, a magnificent synagogue, designed by the famous architect of such buildings in the
Hungarian area Lipót Baumhorn, got its place.
The new church buildings were an external expression of the power and importance of the
three religion communities, whose dignitaries held important positions in the town's ad-
ministrative, financial and school institutions, and were one of the driving forces of the
town's economic and cultural development. Regardless of the number of believers, among
whom Catholics predominated, the equal coexistence of three religious communities had
a significant impact on the development of Murska Sobota in the period from the second
half of the 19th century to the Second World War.
Of course, tolerant coexistence was not a permanent state. Changing political situation,
exclusionary and politically based legislation, the prevailing political affiliation of mem-
bers of different religious groups and their prevailing national identification, historical re-
sentments, prejudices, ignorance – these are all elements that need to be considered if we
want to create a more comprehensive picture of their relations. In this article, I especially
emphasize the relations between religious groups according to their prevailing national
identity. We are talking about the time of the emergence of nationalisms associated with the
formation of nation-states in the 19th century. That ultimately resulted in the collapse of one
multinational monarchy, the emergence of a new multinational monarchy, part of which
Prekmurje became in 1919, and revisionist Hungarian politics, that joined the Triple Alliance
to achieve its national goals.
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