kostel Panny Marie Sněžné v Rokycanech Church

The Church of the Virgin Mary Snow stands on Masaryk Square in Rokycany and is one of the important sacral structures of the Pilsen Region. It is a Roman Catholic temple with a strongly anchored history in urban development, which retains the elements of its Gothic past despite significant baroque and classical interventions from the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Bones is granted protection as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic.

The presence of the church in this place can be demonstrated at least from the 14th century when Rokycany evolved from a freely expanding settlement to a fortified city. In 1363 the Probostness of the Augustinian Order was established here and the church acquired the status of the main temple Rokycan. It became part of the entire fortified district, which also included the chapel of Saint Anne and the Archbishop Chateau serving as the headquarters of the feudal administration. This area belonged to the Archbishop of Prague. The original construction took the form of a Gothic basilica with three boats and a five-sided presbytery. On the west side, a tower and a shield rose, the entrance was made up of a Gothic portal with a rich figural sculpture decoration.

The fate of the temple was very urgent during the great fire in September of 1784, which destroyed a significant part of Rokycan. In the following years 1785 to 1788 the church passed in the hands of builder Ignatius Jan Nepomuk Palliardi, who rebuilt it into a late Baroque form. The builder Jan Hofmann participated in both reconstruction and deanery. The interesting thing is that Palliardi kept the basic Gothic available during the reconstruction - a tripod with a presbytery - and left it knowingly in the spirit of the original Gothic plan. The interior equipment was collected from other churches, especially the main altar, which comes from the abolished church of St. Michael the Archangel in Prague. As part of the Josephine reforms, the chapel of Saint Anne was abolished at the church as well as the Church of St. Peter and Paul in the suburbs.

So far, Palliardi has not included a tower in his recovery. The bells remained in the temporary bell tower next to the temple for the next 30 years. The new tower was built between 1821 and 1823 in Empire style according to the design of builder František Heger. Construction development was completed in 1856, when the tower increased by one floor above the gallery, reaching its present height of sixty-six metres. In this way the church gradually transformed in its present form, which combines the Gothic foundations with classical elegance.

The Church of the Virgin Mary of Snow is attributed to a distinctive influence on the religion in Rokycan. The Sokcha of the Virgin Mary Rokycanská, which the church guards, was dedicated as an object of respect. According to the old sources it was dedicated to the 32nd Holy Way Chapel from Prague to Staré Bloslav, which was created between 1674 and 1690. / p >