kostel svaté Anny (Holešov) Church

The Church of Saint Anna in Holešov is a Baroque structure from the first half of the eighteenth century. It was part of a complex with a monastery of the Trinitarian order, located right next to the chateau. Today it is a subsidiary church of the Roman Catholic parish of Holešov in the Olomouc archdiocese and is among the cultural monuments of the Czech Republic.

A Brother's prayer chapel stood on this site in the sixteenth century, to which a Renaissance tower was added in the year fifteen eighty-four. During the re-catholicization, following the arrival of the Jesuits in Holešov, the manor owner Ladislav Popel the Younger of Lobkovic had the prayer chapel converted into a Catholic church dedicated to Saint Anna. It was consecrated on May fifteenth, sixteen sixteen by the Olomouc bishop Cardinal František of Ditrichštejn, and Jan Sarkander became the parish priest. After the Jesuits left, the church fell into disrepair from the year sixteen twenty-six and served only on certain feast days.

The restoration was undertaken by Count František Antonín of Rottal. Between the years seventeen forty-two and seventeen forty-eight, the perimeter walls of the nave and the core of the tower were preserved, a new presbytery with a sacristy and oratory were added, a crypt was created beneath the nave, and the interior received new decoration. The builder Tomáš Sturm the Elder, a longtime servant of the Rottal family, added a monastic wing for five Trinitarians and incorporated the church and religious house into the chateau complex. The church was reconsecrated on July twenty-sixth, seventeen forty-eight. The Trinitarians committed themselves to celebrating two masses daily. One they celebrated for the living members of the Rottal family here, the other for the deceased in the Black Chapel at the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

A second monastic building soon followed, and between the years seventeen fifty-two and seventeen fifty-four a side chapel of Saint Famiān was constructed, later called the Chapel of Saint Cosmas and Damian. In the year seventeen fifty-four, Ignác Foglar the Elder from Valašské Meziříčí built the organ. The monastery ceased to exist in the year seventeen eighty-three as part of the Josephine reforms, and the religious house became a dwelling for the poor. The church again fell into decline until it was repaired in the year eighteen eighty-two. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries it served the students and pupils of Holešov schools. The district government office also had its seat in the complex at that time.

During renovation between the years nineteen sixty-three and nineteen seventy-four, the original ceiling painting by Josef František Pilz depicting the Holy Trinity and saints associated with the Trinitarians was discovered in the Chapel of Saint Cosmas and Damian. Rococo illusory wall paintings were also uncovered on the walls, in the window recesses, and in the niche of the altar. Since the year two thousand six, the church has been protected from moisture and the side altars have been restored. After the year two thousand ten, the city renewed the surrounding houses, remnants of the Baroque wall and gate, and renovated Saint Anna Square. In the year two thousand twenty, a Memorial of Reconciliation in the form of a metal tree was added in front of the church, and a Memorial Hall of Saint John Sarkander was created in the oratory.