Church of the Immaculate Conception, Gothic Revival church in Přívoz, Czech Republic
The Church of the Immaculate Conception is a 36.43 m long, 27 m high neo-Gothic building with a cross-shaped nave and two 67 m towers flanking the southern facade. Its brick walls, steep slate roofs and pointed windows with tracery are joined by a portico with a triple portal, where statues of Saints Cyril and Methodius stand.
Přívoz residents long attended the church of St. Wenceslas in Moravian Ostrava but wanted their own parish, a wish strengthened by efforts to raise the settlement to town status. In April 1890 a society was formed to build the church, and the Viennese architect Camillo Sitte, who also drew up Přívoz's overall plan, produced the design. Completion, planned for 1898 to mark Emperor Franz Joseph I's fifty-year reign, slipped by a year; Archbishop Theodor Kohn of Olomouc consecrated the church on 15 August 1899, with Archduke Eugen representing the imperial family.
Residents of Přívoz long attended the church of St. Wenceslas in Moravská Ostrava before building their own parish church; a society for its construction was founded in April 1890. The church was consecrated on 15 August 1899, the feast of the Assumption, by Olomouc archbishop Theodor Kohn, with Archduke Eugen representing the imperial family.
The church stands on Svatopluk Čech Square in Přívoz, its main entrance framed by the three-part portal between the two towers. The interior is reached through a vestibule with a wrought-iron grille; the chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows and its sandstone Pietà lie to the right of that entrance.
The three steel bells in the towers were cast in 1921 by the Vítkovice ironworks and replaced five bronze bells requisitioned during World War I. The largest, Maria, weighs 1,350 kg and hangs in the eastern tower; Metoděj (850 kg) and Aloisius (475 kg) hang in the western tower, each with liturgical texts engraved on its clapper.
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