Kostel svatého Jakuba Staršího (Želnava) Church

The church of St. James the Elder is an oriented one-ship building with a five-sided presbytery, which is explained by its architectural layers about its long history. The first written mention of the church dates back to 1395, when Želnava, after a protracted dispute with the Vyšehrad Probostna, was returned to the property of the Golden Horus monastery. Only the lower part of the church tower is probably preserved from this Gothic period - the remaining elements are the result of subsequent repairs and reconstructions.

The gradual changes reflected the changing needs of the parish. In 1686, sacristy was added to the presbytery and two years later the tower was first increased. However, the biggest change was brought about by the years 1708 to 1712, when the church was expanded baroque and significantly rebuilt. The builder kept the original available, but increased the windows and increased the tower again. The new construction was consecrated on 19 February 1713 by the Czech Krumlov prelate Siegmund Hübner. In 1772 the tower reached a further increase while in the 19th century maintenance interventions were carried out - in 1892 the ceiling of the ship and the roof was repaired, the church was drained, and in 1902 the stairs to the second empire were built in the tower.

The construction features architectural simplicity in exterior and interior. The boat is 14.3 metres long and 11 metres high, with a flat ceiling decorated with stucco. The preservation of the wooden bark, which carries two wooden columns and which is rare in such preserved condition, is exceptional. The presbytery is a well-arched building with sections, and the sacristy has a cross arch. The façades remained simple and smooth, decorated only by a corner of a color highlighted by the brass.

The church's inner furnishings tell us about its historical wealth. The main altar of St. James dates back to 1724, its columns with windstorm-shrouded sticks are characteristic elements of the portal architecture. In the presbytery there are the opposite statues of St. Peter and Paul, which are torsions of twelve statues of apostles from the second half of the 17th century. The north altar contains a copy of the late-looking Madonna from the second quarter of the 15th century. Exceptional is a gothic panel painting called The Kneeling of the Kings of Želnavsko from around 1420, which is now located in the National Gallery in Prague. The Granite Baptist from 1723 has a carved wooden lid, the pulpit is decorated with paintings of Western church fathers. Of the four bells mentioned in 1918, only one of the years 1624 or 1644 survived since Heinrich Ableitner of Pasov. The organ installed in 1811 replaced the tool older from 1727.

The church also has a cemetery surrounded by a wall. Since 1981, it has gradually transformed into a unique collection of artistic secular cast iron. More than two hundred cast iron crosses and plastic were preserved and supplemented with additional pieces from nearby cemeteries. This project, which was born in the early 1980s, could have been implemented here, in the place where the original villagers were displaced after 1945, and which gradually became a collection of semамятки stone craft.