Slovak churches are not getting rid of churches; on the contrary, they need new ones

Bratislava - The churches in Slovakia do not dispose of their churches, which require a lot of money for maintenance. They still have enough believers, and therefore they only occasionally offer church buildings for secular purposes. According to a survey by ČTK, the vast majority of historic churches or temples are still used for their original purposes, and churches are even building new ones.
    "It has never been customary here for a church to cease being used for economic or other reasons and to be converted for other purposes," said Tibor Hajdu, secretary of the Trnava Roman Catholic Archdiocese, to ČTK. Similar experiences were shared by representatives of other dioceses contacted by ČTK; many, on the contrary, declared that the number of churches is increasing. The majority of Slovaks identify with the Catholic Church - according to the last census, more than two-thirds.
    The spokesperson for the Slovak Bishops' Conference, Jozef Kováčik, asserts that even if the number of believers were to decline, the church would not want to offer its churches for secular purposes, as these buildings are too important for Christians. "That is precisely why these buildings are not intended to be traded in the future," Kováčik said.
    In Slovakia, there are indeed several so-called deconsecrated churches, but most of them ceased to hold masses before 1989, during the time when the communist regime suppressed religion in former Czechoslovakia. For example, on Slanický Island in the Orava Reservoir, a historic church was transformed into a museum of a demolished village. In Banská Štiavnica, the church ceased using the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the 1940s, which was converted into a funeral hall in the 1980s.
    Neither of the two Eastern Rite churches - the Greek Catholic and Orthodox - according to their representatives, have dismantled any of their temples in modern history in Slovakia. "All are being used," stated Michal Švajko, secretary of the Prešov Orthodox Eparchy, adding that Orthodox believers in western Slovakia must rent churches or chapels from the Roman Catholic Church. According to him, they also use wooden churches in remote villages in the northeastern part of the country.
    The Greek Catholic Church, which has the third largest number of believers in Slovakia after Roman Catholics and Evangelicals, primarily uses the vast majority of its churches, although it also records several unused buildings. "Currently, we have three unused brick temples," stated Ľubomír Petrík, director of the bishop's office in Prešov.
    In contrast, the Calvinist Church has more unused churches, to which mainly Hungarian citizens in southern Slovakia belong. Its representative, Sándor Molnár, even suggested that some of these buildings might be offered to other churches. "We also have churches that are currently not being used and probably will not be for a long time. This is mainly around Rimavská Sobota, where the original population was resettled," he stated.