The Church of St. Mary

The church below Velenje Castle, which appears in old records under the name Our Lady in Velenje, is first mentioned in written sources in 1477. It is essentially medieval and was built at the same time as the settlement below the castle, that is in the mid-13th century, as a proprietary church of the lords of Velenje or as a branch of the Škale parish.

In the 16th century, between 1574 and 1600, the Protestants acquired it for their worship as a result of the efforts of the Velenje castle lord Baltazar Wagen. They also buried in the church and in the cemetery around it. In addition to the wife of the predicant, the Lutheran preacher Ivan Dolijanski, Baltazar Wagen and his son may also have been buried in the church.

The cemetery around the church continued to serve for the burials of Protestant believers for several decades after the church was taken back by the Catholics. The Counts Sauer, owners of Velenje Castle from 1603, even obtained permission to set up a family crypt. After many years of effort and bitter disputes, the church passed into Catholic hands in 1600. On White Sunday (9 April) it was taken over and consecrated by the Ljubljana bishop Tomaž Hren, with a great procession said to have numbered more than 10,000 people.

Source: Velenje Municipality