To be exact the church’s construction began in 1812
and was completed in 1821. The church itself
(congregation) began in 1803 and it received a
great boost in 1808 with the arrival of approximately
200 families from various towns in Slovakia.
As you can see on the plaque below that it was built by the
Slovakian population that arrived in Nadlac and that they
laid the first stone in 1812. The plaque also states that the
church was declared an historical monument in 1977. The
language on the left is Romanian and on the right it is in
Slovakian.
I hope that the first picture does justice to this beautiful old
church. But the real purpose of this posting is to describe one of
it’s truly unique traditions. For almost two hundred year this
church has had a continuous practice which I have not seen or
heard of before. This is not to say that it doesn’t exists anywhere
else but as of yet no one has been able to say that they have seen
or heard of a similar practice in another locality. Ok, what is all this
stuff I am speaking about ? What is this unique practice that has
been going on for so long? Let me give you a little hint … it has
something to do with the next picture. I am sure that anyone could
guess what it is by now. To tell you the truth, I doubt if you could.
Let me try another hint. In this picture you can also see two sides
of the walk way that surrounds the steeple. I think I am making this
too easy for someone to guess. Where is the fun, huh?
If anyone guessed what you see in the next picture then give
yourself a pat on the back.
Mr. Kochan Dusan sounding out the
time (5 p.m. September 19, 2006)
There you can see the almost 200 year habit of having a person
with a trumpet sound out the time of day from the clock tower of
the church. It was told to me that this custom has been ongoing
from the time of the church’s completion, maybe even before. It
also continued non-stop during the WW II.
This custom of announcing the time requires that a person
with a horn sound out an equal amount of beats that correspond to
the actual time of day. For example: 7 o’clock will bring 6 steady
distinct beats with the seventh being held for about twice the amount
of time as the other prior beats. It is also sounded out in the four
directions. A person will also, on the quarter hour, blast out beats in
conjunction to the time. For ¼ after there will be one beat, ½ past
will give you two beats and ¼ of will give you 3 beats.
Of course to say that this happened all day at every hour and
quarter hour for 200 years would be an incredible story, but
untrue. Occasionally there are circumstances that could make
it impossible to sound out the time. But those circumstances
are practical ones. The guy may have to go to the field to harvest
his crops. That usually happens this time of the year. Also, the
church parish is building a retirement home and the guy that
sounds the horn is also aiding in the construction of that
structure. But what does happen is that even despite the fact
that they didn’t announce the time regularly they do sound it at
least a few times daily so as to carry on the custom.
Here are some other tidbits of information concerning this
practice. The usual schedule (especially in winter) starts at 6
in the morning and continues till 11 at night. Right now there are
4 men that are sharing the duties of sounding out the time. Also
in the past there where families that lived in the church and took
the responsibility of keeping people informed of the time of day.
As you can see by the other plaque in this last picture (which is
mounted on the right hand side of the main entrance, and is written
in Slovakian) that confirms that it has been over 200 hundred years
since the people who immigrated from Slovakia founded this church.
So in conclusion I have to say that I am pretty lucky to be in a
place like Nadlac that has such a custom. I am sure somewhere in
the world there is something similar and maybe even somewhere
else in Europe. Despite that chance, this 200 year old ritual of
announcing time with blasts of a trumpet, still makes Nadlac
a little city with a pretty big tradition.
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