Matthias Church, Budapest

High on Buda’s Castle Hill, beside the white turrets of the Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church is strikingly colourful: its roofs are covered in patterned glazed tiles and almost all of its interior is painted. A medieval church where Hungary’s kings were married and crowned, it was rebuilt in romantic neo-Gothic style in the 1870s–1890s. Tickets are needed, and the tower can be climbed.

Coronation church

The Church of Our Lady of Buda was begun in the mid-13th century. It takes its popular name from King Matthias Corvinus, who married both his wives here and set his coat of arms on the tower. Charles I was crowned here in 1309. Under Ottoman rule from 1541 it was a mosque; after Buda was retaken in 1686, the Jesuits rebuilt it in Baroque style. In 1867 Franz Joseph and Elisabeth, the Empress Sisi, were crowned King and Queen of Hungary here, and in 1916 Charles IV, the last king, was crowned here too.

The church you see is largely the work of the architect Frigyes Schulek, who from 1874 to 1896 returned it to Gothic form, gave the south tower its neo-Gothic spire and balcony, added the tiled roofs and designed much of the furniture. It was badly damaged in the siege of Budapest in 1944–45, repaired from 1954 into the 1970s, and fully refurbished again between 2004 and 2013.

The visitor’s cheat sheet

What to see

The painted interior

Inside, the walls and pillars are covered in painted patterns of gold, red and green, and the chapels in figure scenes. The painters Bertalan Székely and Károly Lotz decorated it with Schulek, using traces of the medieval wall paintings, and designed the stained glass. Look for Lotz’s scenes from the life of St Ladislaus and Schulek’s carved pulpit of 1890–93. An audio guide runs on your own phone: the first chapters are free, and the full guide costs 1,600 HUF.

The royal tomb

In the Holy Trinity Chapel, in the north aisle, lie King Béla III, who died in 1196, and his wife Agnes of Antioch. Their remains were found at Székesfehérvár and moved here in 1898, under a neo-Gothic canopy designed by Schulek.

The museum and the tower

A collection of church art begins in the medieval crypt and climbs to the galleries and the Royal Oratory, where a copy of the Holy Crown of Hungary is on show. The tower can be climbed on a short guided visit: 197 steps, no lift, at most 15 people a time, every half hour.

The Fisherman’s Bastion

The white terraces and turrets on the east side of the square were also designed by Schulek, as a lookout over the Danube and Pest. The lower terraces are free at any time; the upper ones charge from 9am to 7pm (to 9pm from June to September). Between the bastion and the church stands Alajos Stróbl’s equestrian statue of St Stephen, and in front of the church the Baroque Holy Trinity Column of 1713.

Getting there

The church is on Szentháromság tér in the Castle District of Buda. Bus 16 runs from Deák Ferenc tér in Pest across the Chain Bridge to the Szentháromság tér stop, a few steps from the church; buses 16A and 116 come up from Széll Kálmán tér. The historic funicular climbs from Clark Ádám tér at the Buda end of the Chain Bridge (4,500 HUF one way for adults in 2026), and from its top station it is a walk north along Tárnok utca. On foot, it is about 20 minutes uphill from Széll Kálmán tér through the Vienna Gate.

Don’t miss

• The tiled roofs Best seen from the Fisherman’s Bastion.
• The painted nave Every pillar and wall.
• Béla III’s tomb In the north aisle.
• The tower 197 steps, every half hour.

Insider tips

More churches in Budapest

• St Stephen’s Basilica — the great domed church of Pest, across the river.

See all the Hungarian churches in this guide →