Debrőd is located in the district of Košice, twenty-seven kilometres from the city, on the right bank of the Bódva River, in a narrow valley, surrounded by forests. The village is located next to the St. John’s spring – Szentjánoska – and along the stream.
The settlement belonged to the provostship of Premontre in Jászóvár during the Middle Ages, and accordingly the village was mentioned for the first time in writing (Debregy) by the provost’s deed of re-establishment in 1255, which was donated by this document as a land estate by King Béla IV. The village was owned by the provost until 1848, but these centuries did not mean permanent tranquillity. While fifteen households were counted in the village in the first triennial of the 15th century, by the 18th century only five serfs and one cotter household survived in the village, which had declined due to the Turkish devastation and the plague during the Rákóczi War of Independence. According to some sources, residents from the vicinity of Szeged were settled to replenish the village, while György Györffy writes in his work entitled “The Historical Geography of Hungary in the Árpádian Age” that the locals declared themselves to be Szeklers. Many researchers tie the intensive cult of St. Ladislaus to this, which was thus imported and brought by the colonised, inmoved Szeklers. In the first half of the 18th century, a Catholic school opened in the village, and the number of families began to grow steadily. Despite the initial boom, further calamities hit the village during the 20th century: several residents were lost in World War I, lightning struck St. Peter and Paul Parish Church on Ascension Day in 1944, when four died and ten were wounded. Many did not return home from World War II, then the settlement became part of Czechoslovakia permanently, the school was closed. Families were relocated to Hungary as part of a population exchange, while others were sentenced to forced labour. The persistency of the cult of St. Ladislaus is also a symbol of surviving the many calamities.
Its ruined church of medieval origin – which is reminiscent of the plant-church designed by Gábor Tamás today – can be found about three kilometres from the village, in the St. Ladislaus clearing, accessible by the dirt road in good condition, and presumably was erected in honour of the royal saint. Although almost nothing can be seen from the original walls today, the village has remained Catholic, a place of pilgrimage and at the same time the northernmost Hungarian-majority village.
Legend
According to the local legend of St. Ladislaus, the knight king found himself with his army in the forest of Debrőd while chasing the enemy. His men were left without food, so the king began in silent prayer, “My Lord-Creator, just as you used to satisfy the people of Israel with heavenly bread in the wilderness, so do not let the poor Christians starve to death!” At the word of his prayer, tamed beasts came out of the forest, deer and stags marched before them. The army was soon tormented by thirst, so St. Ladislaus turned once again to God, who heard his request, and in the wake of the king’s horse’s horseshoe erupted an abundant spring that would never run out or dry out. The descriptions also mention that for a long time you could see the traces of the horseshoe at the bottom of the spring, for Ladislau’s horse is also legendary.
Perhaps the earliest written work of the Baroque musician Daniel Speer, published in 1683, the Hungarian Simplicissimus – originally called Ungarischer oder Dacianischer Simplicissimus – related the spring in Debrőd near Jászó to St. Ladislaus: “There are many wonderful deeds about King St. Ladislaus in Hungary and Transylvania. Thus, in Jászó is shown a spring that he had wringed on a high, rocky mountain, when he was once cornered there with his army and suffered from a lack of water. I saw this myself on the occasion of an indulgence, because it is customary to make a pilgrimage here on St. Ladislaus’ Day every year. It is said that he begged for this water to God in the following way. Sitting on horseback, he prayed fervently when the horse suddenly jumped on the rock with him, and immediately the water popped out and the sacred spring remained to this day.” In 1870, István Gyárfás recalled the tradition of reverence for the royal saint as follows, bringing the story of folk religiosity down to the ground of reality: “It seems that the fleeing Kúni armies returned on the same road they followed when fleeing, crossed the Tisza and fled into the forests of Abaúj County, but if the tradition can be believed, the pursuing Hungarians followed them here as well. On the outskirts of today’s Jászó-Döbröd there is still the well of St. Ladislaus, the spring of which gushed out if not for the king’s supplication and in the wake of his horse’s horseshoe, but was believed to have been discovered in the wooded mountains by the great king’s care.” Dénes Lengyel also captures the legend in his volume “Old Hungarian Legends” (1972): “When an army marched near the village of Jászó–Debrőd, the soldiers were tormented by excruciating thirst. Their thirst was so great that they began to cry out in agony. The leader of the Tartars hears this cry and asks King Ladislaus with great mockery: – Do you hear, king, why are your soldiers roaring so much? – Because they want to clash with you – replied King St. Ladislaus. But before a battle took place, the holy king prayed to God to freshen up his yearning soldiers. God has heard his prayer once again: and behold, water has bubbled in the wake of the horseshoe of St. Ladislaus’s horse, an abundant spring gushed up.” Then, in 1995, a local woman, Mrs. Bálint Beniczky, narrated the legend like this: “Then you didn’t have anything to eat in the big woods. Then they succeeded ostensibly… so I heard… then so many beasts came out of the forest that they didn’t have to shoot, they could catch the game easily. And then… so he had already convinced them, St. Ladislaus prayed to the good God that he would have mercy on him because his army would be lost. And then the beasts came out of the forest so that even if they didn’t shoot, they could catch them. And then they’re already baking, cooking, they did it anyway they could.” While water striking does not appear in the medieval legend, the supply of food to the army appears as a second miracle: “After that, invading pechenegs broke into Hungary and dragged men and women into captivity. Pursuing them with his army, the king arrived into a great wilderness and had nothing to eat. And while the army was haunted by famine, he withdrew from them, prayed on his knees, and pleaded for the mercy of God that he who had once fed the children of Israel with rains of manna would not let the Christian people perish from hunger or starvation. And he arose from his prayer, and behold a flock of deer and cattle, and shedding its savageness went out with him into the midst of the army. So, they took as much of the animals as they needed, praising and glorifying God in his holiness, who thus had mercy on them.”
The motif of the water striking is a well-known biblical element, we find it in the story of Moses (Exodus 17:6), and the psalmist also mentions it (Ps. 78:19–20).
The water striking itself does not appear in the legend of St. Ladislaus originating at the turn of the 11th and12th century, we read about it – in no relation to Debrőd – earliest in the 15th century sermon of Pelbárt from Temesvár, relating to Transylvania: “There are also miraculously gushed springs from the rock, to the prayer of St. Ladislaus, when he needed to refresh his army.” The anonymous author of the Érdy Codex (1526) then records: “(In Transylvania) there are large beautiful wells flowing out, which the holy king asked of the Lord God for the people in need. Around these the traces of the holy king’s feet are seen, the place of the point (spear) and of the helmet, all of which are penetrated (pressed) in the strong rock.”
The spring near Debrőd mentioned by the authors is still visible today. The associated reverence is indicated by the fact that the church was built next to it around 1500, of which only ruins endured. According to tradition, Domokos Bátkay/Báthory built the provost of Jászóvár, and came to the village during the reign of King Matthias. After the Turkish devastation, in the 19th century, the limestones and the foundation walls, which only reached a height of one meter, marked the extent of the former church. Research has shown that Bátkay’s constructions may have been preceded by a church, so the cult of St. Ladislaus may have been connected to the area through centuries-old traditions, although we have no written source as to whether the early church was dedicated to him. When examining the floor plan of the building, an unusual outline of a gate is visible not on the south side but on the north side, suggesting that a monastery was connected to the church during the Middle Ages, but archaeologists have not yet found traces of this. We don’t know more about the medieval church, there aren’t any sources of it.
The floor plan shows a relatively large single-nave church with a multi-arched sanctuary almost the same width as the nave. From the west side, if we assign importance to the seemingly fortified foundation, a vestibule and a tower above it could have been connected to the nave.
The legends associated with the spring are not limited to the Middle Ages. At the time of the 1721 investigation, a local witness claimed that in the chapel next to the spring, which had been erected in the midst of the church ruins, a complete indulgence had been won “dating back centuries”, so the punishment for forgiven sins was completely waived if someone journeyed in pilgrimage here, and did penance. By the 19th century, the chapel was already in ruins, according to the visitation report of 1814, but people continued to journey here until the early 20th century; although with varying intensity, it was a frequently visited place. On September 8th 1952, two women from Szepsi also set out to visit the spring when the Virgin Mary appeared in front of them on a huge cloud, with the child Jesus on her lap. Two weeks later, on September 25th “the whole forest swam in a golden yellow light, the sun lost its dazzling glow, and appeared in a whiteness similar to the Host. A terrible redness swarmed in the northern part of the forest. All around, roses fell on the land” and the miracle was repeated several times, as a result of which the pilgrimage resumed. In 1959, however, it was banned by Czechoslovak authorities, and the chapel was set on fire and demolished. Although attendance at the site remained low, people still came here to pray, and even a chapel almost always stood in the midst of the ruins of a medieval church, even if it was modest in design. The village retained its Catholic faith, and after several years of preparatory work – led by László Frankovics, parish priest of Debrőd and Mayor Anna Papp – an attempt was made to restart the pilgrimages. Within the framework of this, the idea of reconstructing the church of St. Ladislaus also arose, so for the first time the foundations of the medieval church were strengthened in 2006 under the leadership of Károly Fecsu Szabó and the participation of historian Lajos Szántai.
The constructions were influenced by the fact that it is a protected area next to the Slovak Paradise National Park, so the Environmental Protection Agency allowed only natural materials to be used. Architect Gábor Tamás designed the plant-church in this spirit, and also left the trees growing inside. The larch edifice shows an imaginary arrangement of a single-nave, west-towered church type. At the top of its tower, you can see a cross carved by Árpád Cselényi, an artist from Tornalja, while above the sanctuary you another cross is to be seen carved by László Kiss, an artist from Encs. Native trees were planted around the building and its walls were overgrown with native plants. The new church, which was built on the foundations of a medieval church, was consecrated on September 15th 2007, on the Day of Our Lady of Sorrows in honour of St. Ladislaus. The building “grows out” of its surroundings naturally, organically, blends harmoniously into the landscape, forming an organic unity with it: it simultaneously evokes the (supposed) former mass of the church and also indicates that although the church has perished, the cult of the saint is in turn kept alive by tradition and memory.
The people of Debrőd and their pilgrims also composed their own religious folk song to the tune of the psalm beginning with “All creations bless the lord” (Benedicte omnia opera domint domino): “Hail, hail, faithful people of Debrőd St. Ladislaus’ holiness / In whom our soul God’s holy supremacy does bless. / Bless the great king! Who though has redeemed us. / But from the sky when we shout looks down at us. / For his drink the cliff pours springs, / Forest deer to his people sends! / Heaven did not leave him, for he had a living hope / In St. Ladislaus’ heart: and as in him, so in his people. / Our glorious prince, who with such great miracles / You shine, let our hearts burn with such sparks, / Which will excite and lead us to you, / To a heavenly crown, to eternal happiness.”