Kostel svatého Antonína Paduánského (Liberec XIV-Ruprechtice) Church

The Church of Saint Anthony of Padua in the Ruprechtice district of Liberec is a pseudo-Gothic building from the early twentieth century. Today it is protected as a cultural monument.

Its origin is connected with the rapid growth of the village. Around nineteen hundred, almost four thousand people lived in Ruprechtice and the surrounding area, mostly Roman Catholics. Nearby stood a secession pilgrimage church of the Virgin Mary U obrázku, but the locals wished to have a church right in the center of the village. From the end of the nineteenth century, therefore, the Association for Building a Church in Ruprechtice collected money for it.

The project was developed by the Liberec office of architects Max Kühn and Heinrich Fanty. The church was built in the years nineteen hundred and eight to nineteen hundred and ten on a hill south of the emerging Ruprechtice square. It was consecrated on September eighteenth, nineteen hundred and ten by the Litoměřice bishop Josef Gross. A year later, the independent parish of Ruprechtice-Kateřinky was established.

After the Second World War, most of the German-speaking parishioners were evacuated. New inhabitants who came from the Czech interior had no connection to the church. Regular masses were celebrated here until nineteen fifty. Then under the pressure of totalitarian rule they gradually declined. From nineteen fifty-seven, the church became a target for vandals.

In nineteen sixty, the church was lent to the North Bohemian Museum as a repository. In the same year, the district archive concluded a fifty-year contract for the use of the church and the rectory. Steel shelves and an elevator were built into the nave and an archive storage was established there. However, this use protected the building from further destruction, because at least basic maintenance was ensured. In the early eighties, the archive considered an extension in the rectory garden, but it never materialized.

A turning point came after nineteen eighty-nine. In nineteen ninety, the Franciscans took over the management of the parish and two years later the archive moved out. Gradual restoration of the church began. For the altar wall, academic sculptor Roman Podrázský created a composition of relief biblical scenes called The History of Salvation. This wall in the shape of a lunette measures roughly six by four meters and ranks among the highlights of his work. On June twelfth, nineteen ninety-four, the Litoměřice bishop Josef Koukl reconsecrated the church and divine services resumed.

The church is a single-nave building with a rectangular floor plan with buttresses and pointed windows. The presbytery ends in a polygon. A transverse nave is complemented by a prismatic tower. The rectory from the same period is connected to the church by an arcaded corridor, so both buildings form a unified whole. Inside, the church is vaulted with a barrel vault and the windows are decorated with stained glass featuring beloved saints.