Kostel svatého Jakuba apoštola v Cítolibech Church

The Church of Saint James the Apostle, also called the Church of Saint James the Greater, is a baroque landmark of Cítolib. This Roman Catholic parish church stands in the southeastern corner of Tyršovo náměstí and is protected as a cultural monument.

A church likely existed at this location already in the fourteenth century. The first reliable written mention, however, dates from the year thirteen seventy-nine. At that time, the Cítolib parish priest Hanek, also called Herink, lent forty kopas of groschen to the city council in Rakovník. An earlier record from thirteen fifty-eight was not confirmed in the sources. The last mention of a parish priest in Cítolibech dates to fourteen fifty-six. After that, spiritual administration in the village ceased for one hundred and fifty years.

It was restored thanks to a will that was drawn up in sixteen oh-six by the village owner Karel Hruška z Března. Among its provisions were the construction of a new rectory and the appointment of a priest. This position went to the Protestant Zikmund Jáchym Třebenský, who however had to emigrate at the beginning of the twenty-twenties of the seventeenth century. From the sixties of that same century, the parish was administered by Augustinians from the monastery in Dolní Ročov. The original Church of Saint James had a tower, whose facade was painted green in sixteen ninety-two. In April seventeen fourteen, its furnishings were moved to the castle and the old church was demolished.

The new church was built by the owner of the Cítolib estate, Arnošt Bohumír Schütz z Leipoldsheimu. The building was completed in seventeen fifteen. The sources do not provide the architect's name. Schütz did not live to see the consecration. He died in January of that year and was buried in the crypt of the church.

The building has a rectangular floor plan and a presbytery with a semicircular end. A sacristy adjoins it from the north, and from the south, a four-sided space. The tower stands in the western facade. The facade is divided by pilasters and culminates in a gable. In the central part is a rectangular portal with a window above it bearing the Schütz coat of arms. The side walls smoothly transition into the main facade in curved lines. Inside, the nave is vaulted with a barrel vault. The gallery rests on two pillars and three arches, and its eastern part projects outward like a balcony with a wooden railing.

The main altar and presbytery are decorated with sculptures by the sculptor Braun. According to a chronogram, the decoration was completed in seventeen eighteen. On the tabernacle stands a crucifix with two angels. At the end of the presbytery hangs a painting of the Preaching of Saint James from the same period. For a long time it was considered a work by Petr Brandl. It was not until art historian Jaromír Neumann attributed it to the painter Reiner.