Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Starý Plzenec, Medieval church in Starý Plzenec, Czech Republic

The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary is a Gothic church completed in 1351, its nave built over the remains of an earlier Romanesque church whose masonry survives in the western wall. A massive Gothic tower with a Renaissance brick upper storey rises beside it, and the presbytery holds 28 surviving Christological frescoes.

According to legend, the church was founded in 992 by Bishop Adalbert of Prague, who brought twelve Benedictine monks. The Romanesque predecessor was destroyed around 1280, and the Gothic church was completed in 1351. It was burned during the Hussite Wars, then altered in Renaissance and Baroque times; the parish cemetery became a park in 1870.

The church is the parish church of the Starý Plzenec parish, and its patron was Count Arnošt František Waldštejn from 1858. A bronze bell cast by Štefan Prickveit in 1699, donated by local priest Jakub Jan Lenk and sacristan Jan Aškan, still hangs in its original frame. The former parish cemetery beside the church became a park in 1870, keeping the tombstones of local figures such as Jan Belani, director of the Waldštejn ironworks.

The church stands by the former parish cemetery, converted into a park in 1870, where gravestones of local figures such as Jan Belani, director of the Waldstein ironworks, were kept. The Renaissance chapel of 1560 and the enclosing wall are part of the protected monument; the neighbouring Renaissance parish house stands beside the church.

The Gothic roof truss, rebuilt after the Hussite Wars, survives as a rare technical monument. In the tower hangs a bronze bell cast by Štefan Prickveit, donated in 1699 by parish priest Jakub Jan Lenk and sacristan Jan Aškan, with its original bell frame still in use.