European Influences: Local Solutions The Pulpit Altar as a Means of Expression

Abstract

In the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, the use of pulpit altars has never been obligatory or exclusive. However, the importance of the cult centre in the increasingly uniform internal space as a principle of interior design brought this form into life; one that is exclusively characteristic of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church. In Hungary, pulpit altars were built from the time of the Edict of Tolerance (1781) until the end of the 19th century. In their form, they were mostly to local specifications and options, which played an important role over and above the strong Western European influences. In the evolution of the typology, it is not only the interaction between the Catholic and Reformed elements that can be pinpointed but also the national differences so characteristic within the Evangelical-Lutheran Church.
The Slovak, German and Hungarian speaking Lutheran communities, with their diversified and unique relationships, had enriched the forms used in church furnishing in Hungary; this can best be seen in the pulpit altars constructed in the same period.