Kostel Panny Marie Sněžné Church

Kostel Panny Marie Sněžné in Great Popovice is a Roman Catholic filial church, protected as a real cultural monument. This building dominates the centre of the village by the main road and stands out with its layered architectural development: the Gothic core of the late 13th century was rebuilt into a baroque style in the 17th century, and in 1726 the tower was built attached to the south side of the presbytery. A key evidence of early dating was uncovering the southern portal during repairs in 2001.

The church area includes a cemetery with the original Hartmann family chapel, which today serves as a morgue, and the remains of the destroyed chapel of St. Prokop on the top of Dalek. The oldest history of the construction dates back to the end of the 13th century, which is confirmed by the Gothic southern portal discovered in 2001. In the 17th century, the original Gothic church was substantially rebuilt during the period of extensive Baroque reconstruction of the sacral objects in the region. The important construction phase was the year 1726, when the tower was built to the south side of the presbytery. By 30 June 2009, the church served as a parish, then became filial. Specific founders or original owners are not known from available sources; the administration and maintenance provided the parish in the long term, and later the municipality as owner of the cultural monument.

Architecturally, it is a brick oriented single-boat structure with a rectangular ground plan and a triangular presbytery. The facade is simple, divided by the lisen frames and ended with a profiled ledge; The windows are arc-closed. The western facade is decorated with a massive shield with volute wings, a blind round medallion and pilasters carrying a triangular peak framed by the ledge. The tower has a crown ledge in the middle of the sides of a half-circle bent upward over the clock dial; both the tower and the saddle roof of the ship are covered with bags. In the interior are the boat and sacristy (forming the ground floor of the tower) flat ceiling, presbytery is glassed with valenas with manatee lunettes and windows fill with colored stained windows. The Arc of Triumph is compressed, in the oblique walls of the presbytery are shallow niche for statues. The cemetery is surrounded by a wall of quarry stone. North of the church stands a rectangular morgue, originally a chapel with the Hartmann family tomb, covered by a valb roof. It is divided into three spaces connected by arcade arcs; the central space acts as a risalite with a shield of bent roms and oval skylight. The facade has four rectangular windows with lizens and stone sides of the entrances. The interior of the morgue has a flat reed ceiling, the central space is frescoed with the illusory architecture of the altar and the picture of the Crucifixion on the north wall; There are pilasters with Roman heads in them.

From the Hartmann family, it remained a tangible trace of their tomb in the morgue, documenting their connection to the local parish. The chapel of Saint Prokop on the hill of Dalek south of the church underwent a dramatic change of fate: built in 1700 from bricks and quarry stone, was abolished in 1780 during the josefin reforms and burned down in 1844; Her masonry was later dismantled. An important event for understanding the history of the object was already mentioned uncovering the Gothic portal in 2001, which moved the dating of origin a century earlier than expected. In 2009 there was a change of status from parish to filial church.

Today there is a church with a moorings, a statue of St. John Nepomuk, a fenced wall and grounds protected as a whole by cultural monuments. The building offers architecture readers a clear alphabet of styles - from gothic remains to baroque massivity of tower and portal to classical features of the morgue and romantic ruins of chapel in the forest. It is a place where the history of the region is reflected on a small scale, and it is worth a thoughtful visit not only to those interested in sacral architecture, but also to those who want to see how the functions and the face of one room have changed over centuries.