Church of Saint Martin, Cultural monument and church building in Řepy, Czech Republic
The Church of Saint Martin is a small Romanesque stone church with a rectangular nave, a semicircular apse and a square west tower added around 1225. Its white plastered walls and red tiled roofs sit behind a black metal fence on the former village green of Řepy.
A wooden church stood here from the mid-12th century; after a fire, a stone church was built at the start of the 13th century for Frovín, a Prague burgher who had bought Řepy from the Břevnov Benedictines, using stone from Břevnov quarries. The west tower was added around 1225. The church fell out of use in the 16th and early 17th centuries and was reconsecrated in 1667, as a report of that year records.
The church has been the parish church of Řepy since 1996, when the parish of Saint Martin was established; the nearby Church of the Holy Family in the Home of Saint Charles Borromeo serves as its filial church. Since 2002 the parish has published Martinoviny, a parish newsletter also available digitally. The interior combines a few older pieces, such as an organ and a painting by Vilém Kandler, with works by modern artists: a stained-glass window by glassmakers Jiří Černohorský and Vilém Voňka, sculptures by Josef Bláha and paintings by his brother Vlastimil Bláha in the sacristy.
The church stands on Žalanského Street on the former village green, near the Ke Kaménce bus stop served by line 164. A black metal fence runs along the base of the walls, put up in the early 20th century to keep livestock off the building.
During sewer construction in 1968, mass graves were uncovered near the church, likely holding soldiers who fell at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620. The church also received two bells after World War II, cast by Rudolf Perner of České Budějovice and dedicated to Saints Wenceslas and Martin.
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