Chapel of the Holy Cross – Swedish Chapel

At the end of the 14th century Przemko I, Duke of Opava, decided to have a representative chantry chapel built on a hill by an important trade route on the way to Raciborz. The chapel was to represent the Duke’s position in town. Today the chapel is one of the few representatives of Silesian Brick Gothic in the area. The art-historical value of the chapel has increased with the discovery of a 15th century cycle of 15 wall paintings depicting the Apocalypse.

The chapel’s octagonal floor plan is reminiscent of a church in Karlov, Prague. The closest analogy to the building can be found in the Silesian Reichenbach. The chapel was presumably built by the same architect who was in charge of building the town church.

The central octagonal hall with seven buttresses had a rectangular sacristy with adjacent cylindrical turret. The spiral staircase led to a depository. The lower part of the chapel is made of quarry stone with a profiled ledge, the upper part is made of a decorative glazed gotic brick. There are two portals made of tuffite. The same material was used for no longer existing broken arch windows. The original star vaulted ceiling has likewise not been preserved.

In the course of the 15th century, presumably during Przemko’s lifetime, the chapel was adorned with wall paintings depicting the Day of Judgment legends. The paintings are embellished with ornaments and have German captions. The paintings were discovered at the turn of the 20th century and since then they have undergone several restorations. Most of the paintings have been irretrievably damaged, a torso of three successive paintings on five walls of the octagonal room has been preserved. Despite the damage the paintings represent one of the most valuable relics of the late style. When the chapel was passed on to the successive Dukes of the Poděbrad Family, the sons of George of Poděbrady had themselves immortalized in paintings of two half-figures around the portal.

In the second quarter of the 17th century Opava was not spared the hardships of the Thirty Years’ War. The town was occupied first by the Danes, and then the Swedish Army. The Swedes allegedly used the chapel for religious purposes, which gave the chapel its common name – the Swedish Chapel. As a matter of interest, in 1742 the building stood on the border between the Austrian and Prussian part of Silesia. In the 1780s during Joseph’s reforms, the chapel was deconsecrated, and it then served as a storehouse or contribution granary. In 1859 the chapel burned down and the owners considered tearing the it down. In an effort to save the building the Association for the Restoration of the Chapel of the Holy Cross was founded in 1897. The inauspicious fate was finally averted in 1907 when the Silesian Diet bought the chapel from private hands and began with gradual restoration. In 1912 during one stage of the reconstruction the frescos were discovered. So far the last part of the restoration took place in 1996 when the chapel was entered on the list of national cultural heritage and when it also opened to public.