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  2. Opava city
  3. Sight of interest in Opava
  4. Church of the Holy Spirit

Church of the Holy Spirit

Church of the Holy Spirit with the adjacent monastery has from the time it was built belonged to the Order of Friars Minor. The Franciscans presumably first came to Opava in 1234 or 1238, but the first evidence of the order’s presence in Opava dates to 1250 when at the provincial chapter the convent officially joined the Czech-Polish Province. The patron of the building was most likely Margrave of Moravia and later King Ottokar II, who gave the Franciscans the space between Dobytčí Market (Masarykova Street) and the town fortifications.

After 1250 the order started to build the presbytery, about which we have very little information. It possibly comprised of two rectangular fields with a polygonal closure opening into the nave with a broken triumphal arch. The construction was completed in 1269. The south part of the presbytery was adjacent to a brick convent. At the end of the century a tall brick nave was built. The core of the original nave has been preserved. At the beginning of the 14th century a monastery with a church for Order of Saint Clare, the female branch of the Franciscan Order, was built.

Before mid-14th century Nicholas II had the old presbytery removed and he funded a new 20 meters high stone choir. Despite the order’s ban, a massive prismatic tower was built next to the presbytery. Nicholas had a family tomb built under the presbytery. In 1365 he was buried there, later followed by his wife Jutta, sons Wenceslaus I and Przemko I and as the last of the Přemyslid family Ernest, Przemko’s son. The son of George of Poděbrady, Duke of Opava and Count of Kladsko, Victor, is also buried in the church, as well as many local nobles, such as a renowned Jagellonian warrior Bernard Bírka of Násile, or members of the House of Bruntálský or Tvorkovský. The crypt was filled with earth after a fire in 1790.

A fire in 1431 affected both the church and the Franciscan monastery. The most heavily damaged were the roofs of both buildings. During reconstruction the presbytery got a new vault and a new roof with rafters built notably higher than before. From the beginning of the 15th century the monastery was a meeting place for the Provincial Court. Unfortunately, the land register kept in the monastery was irrevocably damaged in the fire. After reconstruction, the monastery building was so presentable and impressive that in 1473 the meeting of King of Bohemia Vladislaus II, King of Poland Casimir IV, and King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus took place there.

The start of Protestantism in the 16th century brought along many troubles for the church and monastery.  At the beginning of the 17th century Lutherans attacked the worshippers during mass. The church was plundered in the course the Thirty Years’ War first by the army of Duke of Krnov, Johan Georg, and then by the Danish army. The hardships culminated with a catastrophic fire of Opava in 1689. Six years after the fire, the church was rebuilt in the Baroque style in a reconstruction that took six years. The presbytery was lowered, the church got a new vault and Baroque windows. At the beginning of the 18th century six alcove chapels and central chapels of St. Anthony and St. Florian were built. The vault was decorated with frescos and in 1731 the church facade changed to include a multi-storey ornamental gable with numerous sculptures. In the topmost niche there is one of the most valuable sculptures in the church – Virgin Mary Immaculate. In the side niches there are 4 sculptures of martyrs and followers of St. Francis. On the attic in the middle there is a sculpture of St. Florian accompanied on the sides by St. Francis and St. Anthony, and four Baroque decorative vases. On the sides there are sculptures of St. Bonaventure and St. Ludwig. In the lateral left niche there is a sculpture of St. John of Nepomuk.

In the 1760s the west hall was rebuilt to include advanced side wings. In the mid-18th century two more wings of the monastery were built giving the complex its today appearance. The monastery was left untouched by the Joseph’s reforms during which many monasteries were dissolved, because in 1785 the second town parish was established there.  Five years later the church was massively damaged in a fire. In the following reconstruction the church was painted by Ignác Günther from Opava. In 1827 the church tower was rebuilt – the storeys changed during the previous reconstruction in the beginning of the 17th century got a Neo-Gothic extension with a lantern and tower clock. The church was heavily damaged and it burned down at the end of World War II. The reconstruction ended in the 1950s. After February 1948 in the course of secularization and internment of the monks, the church was used by the Agro-forestry Archive. At the beginning of the 1990s most of the monastery buildings were returned to the order. Today the whole complex is in the hands of the order again.