The Classicist manor house of the Sziney – Merse family – Svinia
The Baroque mansion from the second half of the 18th century was rebuilt in the Classicist style. It is rectangular in shape with a two-wing layout. It has an eleven-axis façade with a risalit, built-in columns and pillars. The manor house has longitudinal windows and a mansard roof. The rooms are decorated with Prussian vaults. Svinia was a Catholic village until the 16th century, when the entire Merse family, who owned the manor house, converted to the Protestant faith. At that time, it was a common practice that all the subjects had to convert to the faith once their masters converted. From 1589 onwards, an Evangelical preacher led worships in the municipality. In the 17th century, Krištof and Ladislav Merse had a Renaissance tower added to the church. Under the tower lay four bodies of the victims of the “Prešov slaughter”. At the beginning of the 19th century, the church was taken away from the Evangelical Church and became Catholic once again. Below the church are three tombs belonging to the Szinyei-Merse family, two of the tombs have tombstones with epitaphs. The church was a very important place of worship at the time of Caraff’s atrocities, as the Evangelicals from Prešov were banned from building churches and attending Evangelical masses.
