Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Kozlov: A Gothic and Baroque Parish Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page17 sections
History
The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Kozlov is a Roman Catholic church in Czechia, built around a fourteenth-century Gothic core and later enlarged in the Baroque period. Standing on a ridge west of Kozlov, it is regarded as one of the oldest architectural monuments in the surrounding area. The church belongs to the Czech Province, the Diocese of Plzeň, the Karlovy Vary Vicariate, and Bochov parish.
Medieval origins and the Hussite period
The earliest known reference to the church dates from 1365. It names the patrons of the local church and identifies Jakob of Kozlov as its first attested parish priest. From 1384, the church was required to pay a semiannual tithe of 12 groschen. Its Gothic core, including the five-sided presbytery, belongs to this early phase.
During the Hussite Wars, a period of religious and political conflict in fifteenth-century Bohemia, the local lord cultivated a previously fallow strip of land called the Rebel Field. He paid his subjects well to sow it, intending to discourage them from joining the Taborites, a radical Hussite movement active during the wars.
In 1462, the parish priest was a member of the Order of the Crusaders with the Red Star, a Catholic religious order founded in medieval Bohemia and associated with pastoral and charitable work. During the Reformation, the church received an evangelical priest. Immigration and assimilation subsequently made German the main language of communication in the area.
Reformation, Catholic restoration, and Baroque rebuilding
The patron lords of Uttenhofen made minor alterations to the church in the middle of the sixteenth century. Two Renaissance epitaphs in the presbytery commemorate Georg von Uttenhofen, dated 1587, and Heinrich von Uttenhofen, dated 1594. The parish registers begin in 1618.
After the Thirty Years’ War, re-Catholicization, the effort to restore Catholic worship and institutions in territories that had adopted Protestant confessions, reshaped the parish. In 1624, a Catholic priest from the Premonstratensian monastery at Teplá was appointed to Kozlov. The Premonstratensians are a Catholic order of canons founded in the twelfth century, and Teplá was one of their important Bohemian monasteries.
The church underwent an extensive Baroque renovation in 1708, while its Gothic core was retained. Franz Ferdinand Veit Pickart, Knight of Grunthal and owner of the estate, commissioned a new tower and a side chapel in 1707–1708. A new Baroque entrance was made at the same time, leaving the original Gothic entrance within the enlarged building. In 1673, the landowner Adam Ferdinand von Rackel had a large new bell made for the church. Four bells were removed during the First World War, but the 1673 bell remained in the tower. A new set of bells was installed in 1933.
New Rococo furnishings were installed in the middle of the eighteenth century. Rococo was an eighteenth-century decorative style known for delicate ornament, asymmetry, and shell-like forms. In the late nineteenth century, the cemetery beside the church was moved to a site west of the village. During the middle of the nineteenth century, the parish included Kozlov and the villages of Teltsch, Lintsch, Zoboles, Peschkowitz, Schwinau, Miroditz, Pobitz, and part of Lachowitz.
Decline and conservation
In 1930, the parish counted 1,597 Catholics and two non-Catholics. After the Second World War and the expulsion of the German population, the church largely fell out of use. Neglect led to the loss of its plaster, while vandalism and theft removed much of its furnishings. The last recorded service took place in the 1970s, after which the church was deconsecrated, a formal end to its status as a consecrated place of worship.
In 1995, the structurally endangered tower was secured, vegetation was cleared from the grounds, and the site was drained. The citizen association Kostel Kozlov was founded in 2004 to help preserve the building. From 2007, repairs included the roof and tower dome. The original onion dome was removed for safety reasons and replaced, and the church received a new shingle roof. Restoration of the interior in 2021 revealed valuable Gothic and Renaissance wall paintings.
The city of Bochov owns the church. It was entered on the state list of cultural monuments on 3 May 1958 and remains protected as a cultural monument. Restoration has received support from the Czech Ministry of Culture’s Architectural Heritage Rescue Programme and the Bochov municipal budget.
Remains
Gothic core and adjoining spaces
The church is a single-nave building whose Gothic core ends in a five-sided presbytery, the part surrounding the main altar and traditionally reserved for the clergy. The presbytery has one bay of cross-ribbed vaulting, a masonry vault supported by intersecting ribs, followed by a five-part ribbed vault over the termination. The ribs rest on pyramidal consoles and carry sculptural rose bosses.
Gothic entrance and sacrament niche
The original entrance to the nave has a pointed, profiled Gothic portal. The later enlargement and Baroque entrance placed this earlier doorway inside the building. A Gothic sacrament niche, a recess for storing or displaying consecrated elements, survives in the end wall of the presbytery.
Sacristy and lord’s oratory
A late-Gothic sacristy adjoins the northern side of the presbytery. Its entrance from the presbytery has a saddle-backed portal. On the southern side, a covered Baroque wooden staircase leads to the former lord’s oratory, a private or reserved worship space associated with a patron or landowner.
Baroque additions
Bell tower
A Baroque tower adjoins the southern or southwestern side of the nave. Its lower section is square, while the structure becomes octagonal from the second storey upward. The tower retains the 1673 bell, and its dome and roof were repaired during the modern conservation work.
Holy Cross Chapel
A rectangular Holy Cross baptismal chapel adjoins the northern wall of the nave and opens directly into the church. A painting of the Crucifixion formerly hung there. Dating from the first half of the eighteenth century, it was attributed to the painter Peter Johann Brandl before it was stolen.
External staircase
An external staircase stands east of the church. It was formerly decorated with a sculptural group of the Holy Trinity and a statue of Saint Maurice dated 1772.
Interior furnishings and memorials
Main and side altars
The Rococo interior furnishings are severely damaged, while much of the original equipment has been lost or stolen. A surviving fragment of the main columned portal altar retains an image of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, a depiction of the Holy Trinity in its upper section, and statues of Saint Florian and Saint George.
Fragments of the panelled side altars preserve Rococo ornament, glazed display cases, and shell-shaped niches in their upper sections. The Saint Anne altar included a seventeenth-century statue of Saint Anne with the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, together with statues of Saint Joseph and Saint Joachim on consoles and Saint Paul in the upper niche.
The Virgin Mary side altar included a Gothic wooden Madonna from the middle of the fifteenth century, statues of Saint Adalbert and Saint Procopius, and Saint Wenceslas in its upper section.
Choir gallery and vestibule
The church contains a valuable two-storey Baroque choir gallery. An Eye of God motif decorates the entrance vestibule.
Epitaphs and crypt entrance
The two Renaissance epitaphs in the presbytery commemorate Georg von Uttenhofen and Heinrich von Uttenhofen, with dates of 1587 and 1594. An epitaph associated with the Štampach and Kager families and dated 1770 covers the entrance to the crypt. A small figurative epitaph that formerly stood on the lord’s gallery was stolen.
Painted and glazed elements
Restoration of the interior in 2021 brought valuable Gothic and Renaissance wall paintings to light. Restored window fillings display forms of window glazing ranging from the Gothic period to the Baroque period, adding material evidence for the church’s long architectural development.
