Kostel Narození Panny Marie (Starý Plzenec) Church

The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary in Old Plzeň is a Gothic church with a rich history and is protected as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic. Part of its protection includes a Renaissance oriel chapel from 1560 next to the church, a parish building in Renaissance style, and an enclosing wall. Until the mid-19th century, a parish cemetery spread around the churches.

The oldest layer of the church's history reaches back to the time of legend. According to tradition, it was founded in 992 by Prague Bishop St. Wenceslas, with preparations made for 12 Benedictine monks who soon moved to the Břevnov Monastery. In the foundations of the western wall, remnants of the first church can still be found – a single-nave rectangular Romanesque building that was likely destroyed around 1280 by mercenaries of Otto of Brandenburg.

The building acquired its present form in the 14th century. By 1351, construction of the large Gothic church was completed and later supplemented with sacristies and a mighty Gothic tower. The presbytery had been adorned with Gothic frescoes before 1351 – featuring twenty-eight scenes from a Christological cycle of the New Testament. Some were partially repainted in the third quarter of the 15th century, and Gustav T. Miksch later restored them. Frescoes on the southern side and vault date from the end of the 15th century. The Hussite Wars burned and looted the church, but its Gothic roof was rebuilt and has survived as a unique architectural element to this day.

The modern era brought new forms to the church. After 1547, it became a parish church. The Gothic tower was raised with a Renaissance brick addition, and the nave of the church was reconstructed. In 1695, Count Jan Jindřich Kokořovec expanded it by adding two side spaces. The main altar features portal architecture adorned with sculptures of St. Wenceslas, Vojtěch, Ludmila, Markéta, and Archangel Michael, centered around a painting of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary purportedly from 1668. During the Baroque period (1692–1712), when local native Jakub Jan Lenk was parish priest, in 1699 he dedicated a bronze bell to the church made by the Prickveitho bell founders, which is still in use today. Around 1750, a baroque Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre was added on the northern side.

In the 19th century, remnants of the cemetery were transformed into a park with preserved gravestones in 1870. In 1885, new Neo-Gothic altars and confessionals were acquired. The First World War claimed two bells – only one returned. In the 1970s, the tower was repaired, its spire covered with copper sheeting, and the clock replaced by an aluminum replica.

The church offers visitors a rich layer of Czech history – from medieval frescoes and a Gothic roof to Baroque furnishings and details like the bell from 1699. The tower stands as a witness to millennia, guarding the faithful of its parish.