St. Wenceslaus’ Church

One of the oldest sacral buildings in Opava was built near the north part of the town walls in today’s streets Pekařská, Mnišská, and Solná. The story of the building intertwined with the story of the town, and these often unsettled times left their marks on the building.

There is a hypothesis that dates the sacral use of the area by today’s church in the distant past. But the first written evidence comes from 1291 when Duke of Opava, Nicholas I, an illegitimate son of Ottokar II issued a creed that granted the Dominican Order the right to build both a church and monastery in the location. Construction of the church lasted several decadec and was finished under the reign of Nicholast II, on whose wish in 1336 the church devoted to St. Wenceslaus was consecrated by the Bishop of Olomouc. The church had a basilical form segmented by eight pillars in two rows. The long and high presbytery with an pentagonal closure and two side chapels have been partially preserved to this day. Apart from the tuffite traceried window frames with a cinquefoil, and three Romanesque windows in the outer wall of St. Dominic’s chapel in the south that were later walled in, there are also valuable frescos in the church. These are remains of a Gothic wall painting depicting two cycles of legends about St. John the Baptist and St. Stephen, and a unique portrait of the author himself with the caption Nicolaus pictor.

In the course of the 15th century the church was damaged in several fires. As a result the roof frame had to be rebuilt. At the same time the sacristy by the north side of the presbytery was turned into the Chapel of St. Cross, also knowns as the Moravian Chapel. Sermons in the chapel were held in Czech. In 1556 the church was damaged in another fire and soon after reconstruction, which took twenty years to finish, it was plundered by the Lutherans. At the end of the 16th century St. Dominic’s Chapel was renovated in the Renaissance style. A part of the reconstruction was building a wall to form a separate sacristy and Chapel of Mošnovský Family, who had their family tomb established in the church. Soon after a bell tower with a Renaissance attic was built by the north-west front. During the Thirty Years’ War the church was looted by the Duke of Krnov, Johan Georg’s army. The church was turned into stables. Several years later the history repeated itself when Opava was attacked by the Danish Army. When the town was being seized back by Albrecht of Valdštejn, the church and the monastery succumbed to a fire which destroyed the roofs and damaged the tower. The catastrophic events of the first half of the 17th century were topped by another fire in 1651, although the church was spared the great fire of 1689. In 1732 the church underwent a radical reconstruction in the Baroque style.

The original Gothic vaults in the nave and presbytery were turned into barrel vaults. The arcades between the nave and aisles were walled to form rounded arches. The painter I. Depée from Wroclaw and his helper F. K. Sambach  painted the nave and presbytery with frescos depicting St. Wenceslaus legends. Depée painted scenes from St. Dominic’s life and the history of the order on the side walls. The paintings were adorned with ornaments by M. Schwegel. The sculptor J. J. Lehner made a new altar and several side altars. The church roof with its frames and altars were heavily damaged in the fire of 1758 when the town was occupied by the Prussian army. The reconstruction that followed was an epilogue in the history of the church.

In 1786 the monastery dissolved and the church was turned into an army storehouse. A three-storey wooden construction was built in the church to adapt the space to its new purpose. In the following century some parts of the church were destroyed, such as the tower or Loreto Chapel by the west front made at the end of the 17th century. The main portal was turned into a wide gate to accommodate lorries. The presbytary polygonal closure was replaced with a straight wall. The army left the church at the turn of  the 20th century. The subsequent reconstruction was interrupted by war and the building was alloted to the army and stayed in its possession until World War II when it was taken over by Wehrmacht. The after-war attempts to reinstate the church were thwarted by the events of February 1948 and the church was once again used as a storehouse, first by the theatre, then by the department store. When the adjacent monastery was turned into the House of Arts in the 1960s, ideas emerged to use the church as a concert or exhibition hall. The gradual reconstruction culminated in the years 1999–2001 when the church got a new facade. A reconstruction and conservation of the interior followed five years later. Today the church hosts a variety of cultural and social events, and it also serves as a document of the rich history and changes. Today the building is run by Opavská kulturní organizace (Opava Cultural Organization).