Church of the Holy Spirit in Opava, Gothic church in Opava, Czech Republic
The Church of the Holy Spirit is a single-nave church of Gothic origin, baroquized between 1690 and 1767, standing with the Minorite monastery in Opava. Its Gothic choir, over twenty metres high and built in 1336–1347, once held the tomb of the Opava Přemyslids, and a massive square tower adjoins the north side of the presbytery.
The Minorite convent is first documented on 3 April 1250, when it was admitted to the Czech-Polish province at Hradec Králové; the presbytery stood by 1269. A fire on 31 July 1431 collapsed part of its vaults, and the church was baroquified between 1690 and 1767, with a new high altar in 1712 and three chapels added in 1714.
The church holds a second Opava city parish, established in 1785, which helped it survive the Josephine reforms. Its main altar from 1712 was made by Adam Erdt with a painting by Gottfried Herbert; Jan Kryštof Handke painted the vaults in 1724–1725 and the altarpiece of the Stigmatization of St. Francis for the apothecary Novák.
The church stands in Opava's historic centre, beside the Minorite monastery it shares a heritage designation with. The tower's present top, a bell-shaped roof with an onion dome and two lanterns, was rebuilt after 1945 damage following a design by architect Karel Gajovský.
The tower carries a clock installed in 1827, when its top was rebuilt to a design by engineer Johann Anton Englisch; the 1950s reconstruction used a sketch of that repair found in the Silesian Museum collections in 1957.
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