Church of Saint Barbara, Gothic church in Zábřeh, Czech Republic
The Church of Saint Barbara in Zábřeh is a medieval Gothic building with a Baroque reconstruction completed in 1772. Its Gothic polygonal presbytery with an external buttress system survives, and a 1999 restoration survey identified seven Gothic windows in it. The church was listed as a cultural monument in 1958.
The Gothic polygonal presbytery with external buttresses survives from the second half of the 15th century, when Jan Tunkl of Brníčko founded a mass there. After 1620 the church passed to Catholics, was struck by lightning in 1719 and stood near ruin by 1750; it was rebuilt in Baroque form in 1772–1774 and reconsecrated to Saint Barbara on 4 December 1774.
The church is dedicated to Saint Barbara, patroness of the dying, a name it received on 4 December 1774 when it became the cemetery church after the parish graveyard was moved here; burials took place around it until 1911. Since 2004 members of the Zábřeh bell-ringers' group have opened it, usually twice a year.
The church stands outside the former town walls of Zábřeh. Members of the Zábřeh bell-ringers opened it in 2004, and since then it has generally opened to the public twice a year; the 1994 plan for a central layout was rejected by the heritage institute.
The bell tower houses the bell of St. Barbara, cast in 1614 by Donát Schrötter of Hostinné. It hung in the church of St. Bartholomew from 1942 until it returned in 2000. The second bell, St. Anna, was requisitioned in 1917 during World War I.
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