“It is such a small village and yet has two functional churches,” many visitors, who come to the village, wonder. A brief overview of the history of the Church offers an explanation. The oldest record relating to the Church organization directly in the village Sulov-Hradna comes from the pre-reformation period in 1507. Sulov and Hradna both belonged to the parish in Dolny Hricov. Filip was the first known priest in Sulov in 1578. He was the first court preacher of the landowner Teodoz Sirmiensis, who was a supporter of the Reformation and a participant in the Synod of Zilina. The first known visitation of the Evangelical parish in Sulov is by Elias Lani in 1611. It is clear from the record that the church had been built in Sulov at this time. The existence of the church, which was probably wooden, can be assumed also due to the relatively long distance of Sulov to the church in Dolny Hricov. The Sulov Church obtained a permission for the collection for the construction of a new church at a meeting of the Trencin County on the 22nd of July in 1615 in Bytca. Juraj Thurzo negotiated the wood for the trusses. Boards and rafters for the construction of the Sulov church were transported from Orava to Bytca on two battens on the 12th of May in 1616. The church was completed and consecrated with the dedication of the name to Jesus on the 29th of September in 1616. Sulov became one of the so-called articular regions of the Trencin County on the basis of legal articles adopted by the assembly in Soporna in 1681. Evangelicals were free to assemble and to build new temples in articular places. If evangelical churches were sanctified by Catholic in the meantime, they had to be returned to evangelic parish. Evangelicals from far places visited Sulov because only Uhrovec and the free royal city of Trencin were other articular places in the Trencin County. The Evangelicals in Sulov were deprived of the church use several times during the difficult period of counter-reformation. Since 1711 the church has belonged to the Catholic Church. The Evangelical adjusted a wooden house for services in 1734. Queen Maria Theresa allowed the Evangelicals in Sulov to build a new brick church by the stream near a wooden house on the 16th of July in 1748. The house was no longer suitable for religious purposes. Two years later, the church was built and consecrated to the Trinity God on the 29th of September in 1750. In 1766, an independent Catholic parish was established in Sulov. Hradna and Vrchtepla belonged to the parish. Competence disputes of both denominations had been ongoing. Some release of religious conditions occurred after the adoption of the Patent of Toleration in 1781. In 1785, the following areas belonged to the Evangelical Church in Sulov: Hradna, Bodina, Vrchtepla, Kostolec, Rajec, Trstena, Bytcica, Lietava, Lietavska Lucka, Kysucke Nove Mesto, Zavodie, Zariec, Jablonove, Ovciarsko a Benov. Perseverance in faith but also the “articularity” of Sulov contributed to the fact that the Evangelical Church is still alive in Sulov. The Catholic Church also persisted in its faith and had maintained its parish status to these days. The current exemplary religious tolerance was formed by several priests of both denominations. The education of children in local schools also played an important role in it, when due to the large disproportion in the number of pupils divided according to religion, children were divided into church schools according to age and not according to faith. Last but not least, a powerful love intervened, which in many cases resulted in the conclusion of religiously mixed marriages.

zdroj: Vlastný výskum autorky textu M. Kerešovej.