In March 1610 Juraj Thurzó summoned the Lutherans of Upper Hungary to a synod at Žilina, twenty kilometres up the valley, and over three days — 28 to 30 March — they organised themselves into districts under their own superintendents, which is to say Lutheran bishops in all but name, no longer under the Catholic archbishop. Most people in these counties were Lutheran by then and had no church structure of their own; after Žilina they did. Thurzó was both the kingdom's highest officer and a Lutheran, and he used both facts at once. It is one of the founding moments of the Protestant church in Slovakia, and the man who convened it kept his household and his archive here in Bytča.V marci 1610 zvolal Juraj Turzo evanjelikov horného Uhorska na synodu do Žiliny, dvadsať kilometrov hore dolinou, a za tri dni — od 28. do 30. marca — sa usporiadali do dištriktov na čele s vlastnými superintendentmi, čo boli evanjelickí biskupi vo všetkom okrem mena, už nie pod katolíckym arcibiskupom. Väčšina obyvateľov týchto stolíc bola vtedy evanjelická a vlastnú cirkevnú organizáciu nemala; po Žiline ju mala. Turzo bol zároveň najvyšším úradníkom kráľovstva aj evanjelikom a využil obe veci naraz. Je to jeden zo zakladajúcich okamihov evanjelickej cirkvi na Slovensku — a muž, ktorý ju zvolal, mal domácnosť aj archív tu v Bytči.
