This is one of the few Orthodox churches preserved in Hungary, where the main religion is Catholicism. Here you can hear church services in Church Slavonic every day.
The Uspensky Cathedral was built in 1801, and most of its icons have been preserved since the 19th century. One of the most venerated is the Bezdin Icon of the Mother of God, which is said to have been painted in Kiev many centuries ago. Also kept here are a particle of the relics of the holy King Stephen and Venerable Moses the Hungarian. Their icons are even placed side by side. Although, according to legend, Moses the Hungarian became a hermit far from Hungary – in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra.
Most parishioners and tourists visiting the Uspensky Cathedral sometimes do not even suspect what fierce court battles are unfolding around it. The thing is that this church was built on a plot of land that the Greeks purchased back in the 18th century. Services here were originally conducted in Greek. But during World War II the cathedral suffered heavily, and its rectors turned to the Moscow Patriarchate with a request to take the church under its care. Permission was granted, and the Uspensky Cathedral in Budapest came completely under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church.
However, at the beginning of the 21st century, the Constantinople Patriarchate decided to take it back. Numerous court hearings repeatedly issued decisions refusing to satisfy the claims, but the Greek community continues to raise this issue again and again.
