Church of Saint Martin: A Parish Church in Blansko, Czechia
Site at a Glance
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- 4.7
- Popularity
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- Country
- Czechia
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page22 sections
History
The Church of Saint Martin is a Roman Catholic parish church in Blansko, Czechia, standing in Staré Blansko on the right bank of the Svitava River. Its origins lie in a Romanesque church probably founded in the twelfth century, while the present building largely reflects a major Baroque rebuilding begun in 1707. The church serves the parish of Blansko within the Diocese of Brno and the Moravian ecclesiastical province.
Early settlement and the disputed foundation
The church site and its surroundings were probably inhabited by Slavic predecessors before written records begin. Archaeological work beside the north wall in 2017 found fragments of vessels from the first half of the eleventh century. Blansko itself, although not the church, appears in a record of 1141 among the possessions of the bishops of Olomouc. The circumstances through which the bishops acquired the area remain uncertain and were connected with wider tensions between ecclesiastical and secular authority.
The foundation of the church is traditionally associated with Henry Zdík, the twelfth-century bishop of Olomouc and an important ecclesiastical figure in medieval Moravia. He probably intended the church to reinforce an important point within the Olomouc episcopal estate. Vratislav, a prince of the Brno appanage, a principality governed by a member of the ruling Přemyslid dynasty, challenged the bishop’s right to build at Blansko because he claimed the settlement belonged to him. The dispute was entered under 1136 by the Vyšehrad Canon and remained unresolved after a meeting before Conrad of Znojmo at Rajhrad.
The church’s completion and consecration by Henry Zdík in 1140 cannot be established. Construction probably continued after Zdík’s death in 1150 and the death of Prince Vratislav in 1156. The original Romanesque church was probably rebuilt and enlarged in the Gothic period, during the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The scale of this work indicates that Blansko and its estate had become a centre capable of attracting substantial investment.
The parish in the later Middle Ages
A document dated 24 March 1360 records an exchange involving John, the Blansko parish priest and a canon of the collegiate chapter of Saint Maurice in Kroměříž, and Peter Vavřincův of Zbraslav, another priest. It is uncertain whether the Blansko parish itself formed part of the exchange. If it did, Peter Vavřincův, who was described as the personal chaplain of Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor, may have served as the parish priest.
Baroque rebuilding and parish patronage
A decisive transformation began in 1707. The present tower, choir loft, and oratory were constructed, and the church received a new roof structure and floor. Zuzana Terezie, widow of the deceased owner of the Blansko estate, and her sons financed the work. Two commemorative plaques preserve the memory of their patronage.
The presbytery was altered in 1793, when the former Gothic rib vault was dismantled. Its material was reused in the southern oratory and sacristy. The work was paid for by Václav Matuška, a Blansko miller, and his wife Dorota. The church’s first cemetery had occupied the ground immediately around the building. A strong stone wall separated it from the village and also served as a defensive barrier. In 1718, a charnel house was built at the location now occupied by the steps leading to the tower and choir loft.
The church’s musical history also developed during this period. Organ building is recorded from 1695. A replacement instrument installed about sixty years later was rebuilt five years afterward at the expense of the miller Ondřej Plhal and repaired several times. It was replaced in 1858 by an organ with eight speaking stops.
Nineteenth- and twentieth-century changes
The Baroque vault in the nave was replaced by the present flat ceiling in the late nineteenth century, and the presbytery vault was painted blue with gold stars. Earlier painted decoration and Baroque pilasters were progressively covered with plain sprayed plaster during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The southern side entrance was blocked in the 1970s.
The exterior reached much of its present form at the end of the nineteenth century through the efforts and personal expenditure of the parish priest František Srbecký. A northern oratory was built in 1889, with its ground floor later becoming the sacristy. The windows, presbytery paving, and much of the church equipment were renewed during the same phase.
The altars changed repeatedly. An altar dedicated to the Virgin Mary is first mentioned in 1520. In 1782, the woodcarver František Gallaš made three Baroque altars, a pulpit, and a baptismal font. These were replaced at the end of the nineteenth century by three Neo-Gothic altars. During the 1940s, the principal Neo-Gothic altar was replaced by a simpler altar table with a tabernacle.
Burial practices also moved away from the church. Burial began at cemeteries near the former Ježek factory in 1830, continued at Branky, and eventually moved to the present cemetery, completed in 1934. The grave of Karolina Meineke, who had been buried beside the church in 1815, disappeared after the original cemetery was abolished.
The organ installed in 1907 had thirteen speaking stops and 810 pipes. The present instrument replaced it in 2003. During the 1990s, the presbytery was simplified and modernized. One side altar, with its tabernacle and Holy Sepulchre, was moved to a side chapel, while other furnishings were dismantled and placed in storage. A new altar, ambo, sedes, and polished-marble tabernacle were installed.
Archaeology, conservation, and continuing associations
Archaeological and geophysical investigations in 2006 and 2017 clarified aspects of the church’s earlier form and occupation. In 2006, the retaining wall was extensively repaired, and the former cemetery area was turned into a small park with a rose garden. The parish complex and garden were reorganized during the construction of a new rectory, a three-year transformation completed in 2012.
The new rectory was built on the site of an old barn in the parish courtyard. Pope Benedict XVI blessed its foundation stone during his 2009 visit to Moravia. The former rectory became a community centre, and the Lotos building was added at the eastern edge of the parish complex in 2017. In 2019, a new painting of Saint Martin was made by Sergej Kulina of Kunštát during a decoration campaign. The painting and the Lotos building were blessed at a solemn service by Cardinal Dominik Duka.
The church and surrounding parish complex are protected as a heritage monument. The church is also associated with the Moravian branch of the Via Sancti Martini, a pilgrimage network connected with places associated with Saint Martin of Tours, the fourth-century Christian bishop traditionally remembered for sharing his cloak with a beggar. The branch links Szombathely in Hungary, traditionally regarded as Martin’s birthplace, with Tours in France, where he served as bishop and where his cult became centred. The Church of Saint Martin is treated as the symbolic centre of this branch.
Remains
The present church is a single-nave Baroque building with an altar facing east. Its physical form incorporates evidence of earlier Romanesque and Gothic phases, later eighteenth-century construction, and nineteenth-century alteration. The church stands above a retaining wall, with surviving portions of the former cemetery wall on the south side below the church and parish building.
Romanesque and Gothic fabric
Early church remains
Geophysical research in 2006 identified the earliest layout as an east-oriented Romanesque chapel with a set-back semicircular apse. The later Gothic enlargement created the basic extent of the church that shaped its subsequent development. Regular sandstone blocks mixed with limestone survive at the southwestern corner of the nave, and part of this masonry remains visible inside behind the right-hand confessional.
Gothic features
The Gothic church had windows approximately 1.9 metres wide and 3.65 metres high. A Gothic gable was built at the west end, and its outline remains visible from the church attic. The former presbytery had a rib vault that was later removed during the Baroque alterations. A sandstone portal was inserted into the southwestern corner, with its left portion still surviving.
The oldest surviving artistic feature is a sandstone relief of a knight wearing a short skirt and carrying a sword. It was found in the former external south wall during the 1990s. The figure is often identified with Saint Martin, although that interpretation is uncertain. Its date is more securely placed in the second half of the twelfth century.
Baroque nave and tower
Nave and choir loft
The rectangular nave now has a flat ceiling installed during the late nineteenth-century rebuilding in place of the Baroque vaults. Baroque pilasters and statues of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph remain on the walls. Beneath the statue of Saint Joseph, a symbolic footprint of Saint Martin is set into the paving. It was installed when the Moravian branch of the Via Sancti Martini was ceremonially opened.
The choir loft was added during the major expansion at the beginning of the eighteenth century. A Latin commemorative plaque beside the nave entrance records its construction alongside the present tower and other furnishings. Two early twentieth-century confessionals stand on either side of the entrance. The nave benches date from the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and are the oldest furnishings still in use.
Tower and entrance vestibule
The present tower was built during the rebuilding at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Its four levels provide access to the choir loft and church attic, while the upper two levels contain the bells. Arched openings with shutters light the upper stages. Above them, the tower ends in a dome with an octagonal lantern and an onion-shaped finial.
A Pietà statue acquired in 1909 stands in a niche in the entrance vestibule at the base of the tower. Beneath it is a plaque carrying the Czech text of the Stabat Mater, a Christian devotional hymn meditating on the suffering of the Virgin Mary during the Crucifixion. A concrete relief of Christ on the Mount of Olives, made in 1939, stands beside the entrance.
Presbytery, chapels, and furnishings
Presbytery and baptismal font
The presbytery, the area surrounding the principal altar, contains a late Gothic stone baptismal font from the second half of the fifteenth century. It was found buried in the garden of the Rájec parish house at the end of the twentieth century and replaced the Neo-Gothic font made in 1889. The presbytery’s tabernacle is positioned beneath the stained-glass window of Saint Methodius rather than at the centre.
A long-term loan of a plaster model of the Crucified Christ by Josef Václav Myslbek led to the installation of a monumental cross. The central window, which had contained a stained-glass image of Saint Martin, was blocked. The 2019 painting of Saint Martin is positioned beneath the stained-glass window of Saint Cyril. It shows Martin giving part of his cloak to a beggar, identifies him symbolically with Jesus Christ, and incorporates scenes from his life and references to contemporary Saint Martin traditions.
Oratories and side chapel
Two oratories, spaces intended for prayer or worship, adjoin the presbytery. Each has a ground-floor sacristy or chapel. The southern oratory was built in 1793. Its ground floor now contains a chapel with a Neo-Gothic altar, tabernacle, and Holy Sepulchre transferred from the nave. The chapel also receives an extensive Nativity scene whose history reaches back to 1755, while the upper oratory serves as a Schönstatt shrine associated with Marian devotion and community life.
The present sacristy occupies the ground floor of the northern oratory beside the north wall. It was established at the end of the nineteenth century through František Srbecký’s work. A modern Lourdes shrine stands beside the main entrance. Its statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was formerly inside the church near the pulpit and now stands on the stone commemorating the donation that financed the southern oratory.
Crypt, cemetery, and bells
Burial spaces and former cemetery
The crypt beneath the nave measures approximately 5 by 6 metres. It probably originated in the mid-seventeenth century, when the Blansko estate belonged to the Lords of Rožmitál. Zdeněk Václav Lev of Rožmitál was certainly buried there in 1680, while the burial of his father and grandfather is considered probable. Two members of the Gellhorn family were also buried in the crypt. The identities of eleven seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Blansko priests are known, although their precise burial places in or around the church remain uncertain. The crypt has not been opened for archaeological examination.
The former cemetery area contains a nearly four-metre-high stone Baroque cross dated 1801 and a replica memorial to Karolina Meineke. She was buried beside the church in 1815, and the memorial recalls the location of her lost grave.
Bell collection
The oldest surviving bell, Poledník, weighs about 840 kilograms, has a diameter of 74 centimetres, and is 70 centimetres high including its fittings. Its minimally decorated, conical Gothic form bears the inscription “O rex gloriae veni in pace.” Cast before 1400, its precise date is unknown. It is regarded as one of the oldest functioning bells in the Czech lands, although its use is restricted to exceptional parish occasions and it must be set in motion by human strength.
Two large bells were cast in 1958 at Josef Dytrych’s workshop in Brodek near Přerov, replacing bells requisitioned during the two world wars. The smaller weighs about 600 kilograms, has a diameter of 95 centimetres, is 70 centimetres high without its suspension, and is tuned to A1. Its decoration shows Our Lady of Lourdes with a kneeling girl and includes inscriptions commemorating the centenary of the Lourdes apparition. The larger weighs 900 kilograms, measures about 110 centimetres in diameter and approximately 97 centimetres in height without its suspension, and is tuned to F-sharp 1. An ornamental band and the inscription “Saint Martin, pray for us” adorn it.
The smallest bell hangs in a small sanctus turret above the presbytery rather than in the main tower. Traditionally used during the Sanctus and the consecration, it is now unused and inaccessible. Five additional bells formerly hung in the tower. The longest-used was probably the Saint Martin bell, also called “Hrubý,” installed in 1699. It weighed 1,568 kilograms, measured more than 340 centimetres in diameter, and carried reliefs of Saint Martin, Saint Barbara, and the Crucifixion. It was requisitioned during wartime together with a bell cast in 1907.
Organ and parish complex
Organ
The present organ, installed in 2003, is a two-manual instrument with twenty speaking stops and 810 pipes. Pavel Plhoň of Rájec-Jestřebí built it on an electro-pneumatic system with cone chests. Its design was adapted to the church’s acoustically difficult interior.
Parish house and courtyard
The parish house on Komenského Street was rebuilt from its foundations after the church complex was expanded in 1713. It is a one-storey building with stone foundations and a stone front wall. An open courtyard bordered by farm buildings adjoins its western and northern sides. The former rectory now functions as a community centre, while the parish courtyard and garden contain facilities for parish activities and five glass objects inspired by the five Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.
A bronze-plaque memorial to Henry Zdík was installed beside the Lourdes shrine in 2015. The plaque depicts the bishop and commemorates the presumed 880th anniversary of the church’s foundation. The original was made by the sculptor Jan Neckař.
Nearby sites
