Monastery

The ruins of Bugac (Pétermonostor) are the remains of a medieval monastery-church-cemetery complex, which was on the estate of the Becse-Gergely genus and originally consisted of two monasteries; one of them was dedicated to Saint Peter (explained here) and the other one to Saint Paul. According to the excavations on the site, Pétermonostora’s church was a giant three-nave Romanesque basilica. The monastery with nicely carved sandstone features connects from the north, and was built in the middle of the 12th century. The site was first mentioned in a source from 1219, claiming that Bugac had an abbot, which means that it was functioning at that time. During the Mongol invasion, between 1241 and 1242, the monks left the complex and the stones of the monastery were taken away by the Cumans, who the king invited to re-populate the area again, after the Mongol invasion. As they were pagans they did not renovate the sacred site and did not build a new church for 200 years. In the 16th century, the whole region was completely destroyed by the Turks, though the hill that once had the monastery on it, was used as a cemetery until the 20th century.‏