kostel svatého Havla v Poříčí nad Sázavou Church

The Church of Saint Havel in Poříčí nad Sázavou belongs among rare Czech Romanesque buildings. It is the parish church of the local Roman Catholic parish and is protected as a cultural monument. When and under what circumstances it was created, we do not know, because written sources are missing. It is believed that it was built at the end of the twelfth or at the beginning of the thirteenth century.

The main body of the church dates from that time. It consists of a rectangular nave, a semicircular eastern apse, a crypt beneath the chancel, and two towers. The northern tower has survived only to the height of the nave.

In sixteen twenty, the church burned down. After its repair, it received new plaster with drawn ashlar and the southern tower acquired an onion dome. In sixteen seventy-seven, it was made baroque, but a fundamental reconstruction came only in the years seventeen forty-five to seventeen fifty. It was carried out under the patronage of Francis Václav, Count of Vrtby, and his wife Mary Anna, Countess of Klenová. The original southern entrance was bricked up and replaced by today's western one. The Romanesque gallery was replaced by a baroque gallery. A new entrance to the crypt was broken through and a staircase to the elevated chancel was created around it. In the nineteenth century, the wooden superstructure of the southern tower was replaced by today's stone superstructure in the style of Alpine churches. In nineteen forty-eight, an original Romanesque portal was revealed on the southern wall, which was restored in nineteen seventy-one.

The interior has uniform Baroque Gothic furnishings made of linden wood. The sculptor Lazar Widemann carved the altars, the pulpit, and the oratory. The main altar in the eastern apse is decorated with a painting of Saint Havel from seventeen fifty by the Plzeň painter Francis Luxe. On either side of the altar stand two sculptural groups. A penitent kneels at Saint Liborius, in whom Widemann himself is said to have portrayed himself. The beggar at Saint John of Nepomuk reportedly has the appearance of his assistant Daniel Pilát from Poříčí.

In the choir there is furthermore an altar of the Prague Infant Jesus and an altar of Saint Anne with statues of Roman soldiers, Saint Donatus, and Saint Theodore. The pulpit on the northern wall of the nave bears three reliefs. They depict the parable of the sower, the end of the world, and the flight of Lot and his wife from Sodom. Below the pulpit stands a pewter baptismal font from sixteen twenty-nine with a Czech inscription. The oratory on the southern side of the nave is decorated, besides two angels, also with a human head with three faces, youthful, masculine, and aged. It symbolizes the course of human life.

In the tower hang two bells from sixteen seventy-three. The larger one is named Havel, the smaller Václav.