Kostel svaté Markéty (Bludovice) Church

On the edge of Havířov, in the district of Bludovice, stands a church dedicated to St Margaret – the parish church of the Havířov parish, which belongs to the Karviná deanery of the Diocese of Ostrava-Opava. It is listed in the state register of cultural monuments. Although today's brick building dates from the end of the 18th century, the parish it belongs to is documented as early as 1335, in the Peter's Pence register. The next written mention of it dates from 1447.

Both the faith and the ownership of the church changed over the centuries. During the Reformation it passed to the Lutherans, who used it until 1654. The present brick church was built right next to its older wooden predecessor. The foundation stone was laid on 13 July 1786, and six years later, on 18 November 1792, the church was solemnly dedicated to St Margaret and St Michael. Two builders worked on it: first Krečmer from Frýdek, and after his death Reinoch from Paskov took over. The carpentry was done by Josef Dlouhý from Stará Ves in Moravia. In more recent times the building has been repaired: the tower was repaired in 2006 and the sheet-metal roof two years later.

The church is a single-nave late Baroque masonry building with a semicircular chancel. The gabled roof, covered with sheet metal, carries a sanctus turret. The façade is dominated by a square tower with rounded corners, set into the front on the central axis and topped with a dome and lantern; it projects slightly from the front as a shallow risalit. Sacristies are attached on both sides of the chancel. The façade is smooth, articulated on the front by pilasters and lesene frames. Tall round-arched windows let light into the interior. In the lower part of the tower is a round-arched portal, and above it a niche with a statue of Christ.

The nave has a flat, painted ceiling. The chancel has a Prussian cap vault, and the sacristy a barrel vault with lunettes. The furnishings have been partly renewed, but valuable paintings have survived. The painting of Our Lady of the Rosary by the painter Meinhold from Šenov dates from 1849. Slightly older, from 1800, are the paintings of St Anthony and St John of Nepomuk by the Opava painter Ignaz Guenther.

The bells, which survived the loss of the original wooden church, are a chapter of their own. One of them bears reliefs of the Mother of God with Jesus Christ and a Latin inscription dated 1490: Ave regina coelorum, mater regis Angelorum – that is, “Hail, Queen of Heaven, Mother of the King of the Angels.” The second bell, from 1617, decorated with Czech inscriptions and the three coats of arms of its donors, is no longer in the church itself but is kept in the museum in Šenov.

Visitors who come to Havířov-Bludovice will thus find a place where a medieval parish tradition, late 18th-century Baroque architecture and the actual names of the craftsmen and painters who created it come together in a single building. The Church of St Margaret is no showy cathedral, but its special appeal lies precisely in its restrained dignity.