Kostel svatého Gotharda (Vysoké Chvojno) Church

The Church of Saint Gothard, together with the nearby building of the former rectory, is a landmark of Vysoký Chvojn in the Pardubice region. It can be seen from far away above the Labe River plain. Both the church and the rectory are protected as cultural monuments.

The original wooden parish church is first mentioned in the fourteenth century. During the Hussite Wars it was demolished and the parish was transferred to Holice. Later a new church was built, again wooden, but it deteriorated over time and had to be torn down. The decision to rebuild the parish church was made in seventeen hundred and ten, and the first entry in the parish register dates from seventeen hundred and eleven. Master builder Tomáš Haffenecker submitted a project for a stone building in seventeen hundred and twenty-nine. However, the church was built between seventeen thirty-three and seventeen thirty-five according to a design adapted by Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer. The construction was led by builder Roček from nearby Dašice, and at the beginning of September seventeen thirty-five the church was consecrated. It cost fifty-two hundred guilders. For comparison, a peasant farm cost eighty to one hundred guilders at that time.

The site was apparently settled much longer ago. According to some historians, a report from the year eleven hundred and thirty-nine relates to a castle here. At that time the Czech prince Soběslav is said to have fallen ill here, and he then died in February eleven hundred and forty. However, this interpretation is not unanimous.

The church underwent major repairs in eighteen ninety-eight and nineteen twenty-eight. In nineteen sixty-eight the façade was restored and in nineteen ninety-three the church received new electrical installation and was repainted. The exterior façade was renewed in twenty fourteen.

The church is oriented almost from north to south. On the north side stands a tower with a square ground plan, the chancel is at the southern end of the nave. The middle one of the original five bells was cast in fifteen ninety by master Elías, a bellmaker in Hradec nad Labem. The second, smaller bell dates from nineteen thirty-five. A valuable monument is a Renaissance tin font from sixteen fifteen. Two-manual organ in the choir was built in eighteen sixty-four by Josef Andrýs from Neznášov. Behind it three original wedge-shaped bellows have been preserved.

About seventy meters west of the church stands a baroque rectory building with a mansard roof from seventeen eighty-six. Since the nineteen eighties it has been in private hands. In a small park in front of the church stands a baroque statue of Saint John of Nepomuk. Around the church extends a small cemetery. The parish is now administered from Holice.

Saint Gothard was born in the year nine hundred and sixty in Bavaria into the family of a poor farmer. As a boy he entered the Benedictine order and in nine hundred and ninety-six he became abbot. From ten twenty-two until his death in ten thirty-eight he was bishop in Hildesheim. He is venerated mainly in Germany and Switzerland, where a well-known Alpine pass bears his name.