Evangelický kostel (Prostřední Suchá) Church

The Lutheran church in Prostřední Suchá, now part of Havířov, belongs to the Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession. Next to the church lies a Lutheran cemetery covering 7,589 square metres. The parish congregation of the Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Havířov-Suchá owns both the church and the cemetery.

The history of the Lutherans in Suchá goes back to the 16th century, when the local lords of Suchá and their subjects embraced the Reformation and gradually took over the local church as well. It was taken from them on 26 March 1654, when a religious commission closed it. Even so, the nobility continued to support the faithful: between 1654 and 1664 the Lutheran preacher Jan Pragenus hid at the manor house in Dolní Suchá, and the Lutheran clergymen Samuel Fiducius and Alexander Pragenus worked as tutors to the Golkovský and Harasovský families, the owners of Horní Suchá. After the Patent of Toleration was issued, the Lutheran faithful gathered around the new church in Bludovice. In 1852 the first Lutheran school was founded in Suchá.

The founding of a separate cemetery dates back to 1860. The Lutherans of Prostřední Suchá bought land from Bernard Kocur and set up a Lutheran cemetery community. They enclosed the cemetery with a wooden fence and built an entrance gate. The first burial took place there as early as 12 November 1860. In 1872 a wooden chapel with a tower and three bells was built in the cemetery; two of the bells were paid for by private benefactors. On 31 July 1916, however, the bells were requisitioned by the Austrian government for war purposes.

Today's church was built in two stages. In 1924–1925 the wooden chapel was replaced by a masonry building, designed as a chapel with 156 seats. The foundation stone was consecrated on 3 August 1924, and the finished building on 2 August 1925. Twelve years later, in 1937, the chapel was rebuilt as a church: the extension added two side aisles with galleries, an altar apse and a larger choir loft. The number of seats rose to 350. The church was solemnly consecrated on 28 November 1937. The consecration was performed by Senior Oskar Michejda, and the sermon was given by the pastor Józef Nierostek from Polský Těšín. Between the wars, the Union of Lutheran Youth, a youth choir and the Association of Lutheran Women were all active in the congregation.

After the Second World War the congregation was taken over by Pastor Jerzy Czyż, who organised the first confirmation classes in 1946. The independence of the parish congregation in Suchá was officially confirmed on 14 January 1949. In the same year the community acquired an organ built by the Kutná Hora organ builder Jan Tuček (opus 504), partly from parts of an older organ from the Slovak village of Veľké Bierovce. In the 1950s the congregation numbered around 3,500 members.

The effects of mining, however, became an ever greater threat. Mining damage to the church building was gradually repaired, but it led to the loss of two Lutheran school buildings. Together with the cemetery and the surrounding ground, the church subsided by more than 17 metres as a result of undermining. At the beginning of 1958 the state authorities took over the administration of church cemeteries. In the 1980s burials in the cemetery were banned. In 1991 the cemetery and the area around the church were reclaimed: part of the cemetery had been flooded, so the gravestones had to be taken down, the ground raised by about 4 metres with earth, and the graves set up again. Around 1993, after long efforts, the cemetery was reopened and footpaths were built.