16th and 17th centuries A wall around the churchMúr okolo kostola

In the sixteenth century the villagers built a defensive wall around their church, vaulted the nave in 1570 and added the tower in the seventeenth century. Village churches got walls for one reason, and it was the same reason all along this valley: after the Ottomans took central Hungary the raiding parties came north, and no castle was close enough to protect everybody. Zvolenská Slatina, the next village downstream, paid tribute to the Turks from 1584 to 1668, and Vígľaš castle itself was rebuilt from a hunting lodge into a frontier post. The walled church was the village's own answer — a place it could shut itself into with its grain and its animals until the riders had gone.V 16. storočí obohnali dedinčania svoj kostol obranným múrom, v roku 1570 zaklenuli loď a v 17. storočí pristavali vežu. Dedinské kostoly dostávali múry z jediného dôvodu a v tejto doline bol všade rovnaký: po tom, čo Osmani obsadili stredné Uhorsko, chodili na sever lúpežné výpravy a nijaký hrad nebol dosť blízko, aby ochránil všetkých. Zvolenská Slatina, ďalšia dedina po prúde, platila Turkom od roku 1584 do roku 1668 a samotný Vígľaš prestavali z poľovníckeho kaštieľa na pohraničnú pevnôstku. Opevnený kostol bol vlastnou odpoveďou dediny — miesto, kde sa mohla zavrieť aj s obilím a dobytkom, kým jazdci neodtiahli.