Mass is held in St. Barbara's Church every Sunday, and the pub is open every day except Tuesday.
Brennbergbánya, as the name suggests, is a mining settlement, coal was once mined here. The church was also named after the patron saint of miners, St. Barbara. It is interesting that the country's only "tavern church" can be found here.
The coal mine at the Brennberg mine in Sopron operated for nearly two hundred years, until it closed in the 1950s.
In the place of the church, there was a building in which there was a school and a shop in the basement. It was rebuilt with the help of collections and the support of the mine's tenant at the time, Urikány-Zsilvölgyi Magyar Kőszénbánya Rt.
This building was converted into a church in 1930 based on the plans of Oszkár Füredi. A 138-kilogram bell was placed in its 19-meter-high tower, with the inscription: The miner's work is dangerous, think about this when you go down to the mine. The interior of the church is made of wood and is divided by several longitudinal ribs closing in pointed arches, the atmosphere of which evokes the carpentry structures that secure underground mine shafts.
Next to the church, on the ground floor of the office building of the mining administration, the snack bar and espresso bar "Bányász" operated.
When this was demolished in the early 1960s, the former snack bar had to find a new location. For economical and practical reasons, the pub was placed in the oldest room of the church building. Of course, this function was not included in the original plans. But since then, the church and the Miner's Cellar have coexisted peacefully.
Mass is held in St. Barbara's Church every Sunday, and the pub is open every day except Tuesday.
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons/Tamás Tháler
