The Reformed Church of Vetiș
The recently renovated Reformed church of Vetiș is located on the left side of the Someș river. This village in Satu Mare county has got a population of two thousand people, it is known since the 13th century, located between the chief town of the county, Satu Mare and Csenger, it is situated on the eastern side of the Ecseri moor, nearby the border of the country. At the beginning of the 13th century, Reeve Kristóf donated it to the St. Stephen premonstratensian Church of Oradea and later, in 1265 king Stephen V. donated it to Reeve Simon, the ancestor of the Vetési family. The sons of Péter and Endus were inaugurated in into their rightful lands in 1312; in 1365 the Vetési family owned it until the beginning of the 19th century. By the 18th and 19th century the family had dozens of kin families on the female line and many other proprietors.
Vetiș had joined the protestant religion relatively soon, before 1545 and around 1570 Lutheranism was completely replaced with Calvinism. In the following century the church – which belonged to the Presbytery of Sătmar – had developed enjoying the patronage of the Kökényesdi, Iváncsy and Vetési families.
The church, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, was mentioned for the first time in the record of the Papal Tithe: in 1333 the clergyman was called Kozma, while in 1334 a clergyman named Nicholas was mentioned. It was also mentioned several times in the 14th century, concerning the patron’s rights. Albert Vetési was born here, he later became Bishop of Veszprém, who, in 1455, got permission from the Pope for the indulgence for the church of Vetés. In the 14th century, the village often hosted juridical and palatine general assemblies, and in 1458 the Vetési family, who belonged to the Kaplony clan, but took their name after the village, got permission from the king to collect ferriage and tax on the Someș river.
The medieval church was made of stone, its square-based tower from the medieval period faces west and together with the rectangular aisle and the octagonal apse it is fortified by buttresses from each side. A sacristy belonged to the northern side of the apse in the medieval period, and this is proved by the position of the buttress, and the recently discovered portal.
We have some valuable drawings and sketches from the second half of the 19th century, illustrating the church before its refurbishment into a neo-Gothic church. Architect Ferenc Schultz and Flóris Rómer, the pioneer of the Hungarian archaeology had recorded many elements of the church, which had already disappeared. The exterior of tower of the church also became neo-Gothic, the fact that it is old is proved by the presence of several narrow Romanesque windows - some of them had been walled up - and the double lancet windows. According to the sketches, the ogival arched portal, spanned by a banded archivolt, with a cornice was exceptionally beautiful and it could be dated back to the first half of the 14th century. The windows of the apse are definitely medieval, two of them have stone frames, having the remains of original profilature. Only the traceries were broken in the modern times. A door had been opened on the southern side in that period but it was later walled up. Above it and under the cornice a triangular shield with coat of arms can be found, illustrating a bird standing on a branch and uplifting its wings and an “A.V.” monogram.
The entrance into the aisle of the church is the lancet arched door under the tower. The interior still retains its medieval features, a two-bayed cross vault covers the apse which is separated from the nave by a round arched chancel arch. The ribs spring from the semi-cylindrical pillars and unite in an unornamented keystone; on the consoles of the columns simple floral ornament can be seen. The ceiling of the nave was made in 1794, and after a restoration followed by a fire, and inscription says that the church might have been founded in 1325.
During the recent renovation of the church, in the northern wall of the apse an originally pretty, vaulted ciborium ending in a pinnacle, and a lancet arched sacristy door was discovered. It was also discovered, that the apse had another entrance in the south-western corner, and in the south-eastern corner of the nave was segmental arched niche, alluding to the existence of a side-altar.
With the sacristy, which lost its original doors, but it retained its medieval state and with the ornamented tower, which alludes back to Gothic style, the church proudly dominates the village.
