kostel Božího Těla a svatého Ducha Church

The Church of the Body of God and the Holy Spirit is the oldest structure in Slavonice. According to legend, it originated around the year 1280 as a Gothic chapel. It stood on a site where the Eucharist, stolen from the parish Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, was repeatedly found. They say the sacrament was returned each time, but it always appeared again in the same place. This very occurrence became the inspiration for building the chapel.

In 1296, the chapel was consecrated by the Olomouc bishop Dětřich, who granted it indulgences. During the siege of Slavonice by the Hussites in 1423, the chapel was devastated and burned. By 1436, however, it was restored on the remaining Gothic masonry and reconsecrated. It gradually expanded, and in 1491 it was solemnly reconsecrated for the second time, this time as a two-aisled pilgrimage church. In the late sixteenth century, the church became Protestant and was dedicated to the Holy Spirit. From 1620 onwards, it was Catholic again.

The double name has its reason. The church is dedicated to the most holy sacrament, hence the name Body of God. The main altar with the image of the Coronation of the Virgin Mary is dedicated to the Holy Spirit, and that is where the second name comes from.

The development of the pilgrimage site was connected with the Baroque renovation. In 1677, the Olomouc bishop consecrated the newly added northern aisle with the main altar and two side altars. One is dedicated to the Virgin Mary of the Snows, the other to the Holy Cross with the Holy Sepulchre. In 1729, painter Jan Nevídal from Želetavy captured the appearance of the church in the oldest surviving vedute of Slavonice. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a Loreto chapel was added. In the second half of that century, the church underwent a Neo-Gothic restoration.

In 1783, the church was closed as part of the Josephine reforms, and much of its furnishings and votive images were lost. Priest Josef Gross pleaded with Emperor Joseph the Second for the church, and it was preserved. The condition was that the city would bear the costs of maintenance and repairs. By chance, two votive images from 1753 and 1761 were preserved. The family of their donor took them home, and after a hundred years the images returned to the church.

Since the fifteenth century, a hermitage stood by the church. Its last inhabitant was Leopold Mendig, a wealthy native of Slavonice and a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis. He gave his house in the city to the sisters. In the hermitage, he then tended the garden, repaired statues, and taught children from the surrounding mills. He died in 1778 at the age of seventy-five. In 1913, Carmelite nuns briefly stayed there, and a year later they relocated to a new convent in Nová Bystřice.

Since 1958, the church has been a cultural monument.