Kostel svatého Mikuláše (Zdemyslice) Church

The Church of Saint Nicholas in Zdemyslice is a Roman Catholic church that has been protected as a cultural monument since nineteen sixty-three. The village lies in the valley of the Úslava River and belongs to the oldest documented settlements in the Plzeň region. The first mention of it comes from the year eleven fifteen, when it belonged to the Kladruby Monastery. Later it passed into the ownership of the Nepomuk Monastery.

The Gothic church was probably built in the middle of the fourteenth century. It is documented in writing in the year thirteen seventy-one, when the abbot of the Nepomuk Monastery appointed a priest in Zdemyslice. In the year thirteen eighty-four, the church appears in the list of parishes of the České Budějovice diocese. From the Gothic period, the vault of the presbytery, the triumphal arch, most of the windows of the presbytery, and a walled-up window in the southern wall of the nave have survived to this day.

It is a simple single-nave building with a narrower presbytery, which is closed on three sides by an octagon. The nave has a flat ceiling and a pitched roof. Above the western façade, a small tower rises along the axis of the roof.

In the eighteenth century, the church was remodeled in the Baroque style. The sacristy on the southern side and the wall of the cemetery from that period probably date from that time. Greater changes came in the nineteenth century. In eighteen thirty-three, the church was repaired and the floor was paved with bricks. During the neo-Gothic modifications, new windows were opened in the nave and on the northern side of the presbytery, the western façade with the tower was rebuilt, new roof framing was built, and the ceiling of the nave was rebuilt. A choir with an external entrance was also created.

In the twentieth century, the church suffered several blows. In nineteen twenty-seven, the tower caught fire after a lightning strike. In nineteen thirty-eight, the cemetery near the church was closed because a new one was built on the southern edge of the village. And in nineteen fifty-three, an intentionally set fire destroyed the interior furnishings. A rare Baroque main altar from seventeen nineteen burned down at that time. In nineteen fifty-four it was replaced by an altar brought from České Budějovice. Standing on it today are statues of Saint Nicholas and Saint John of Nepomuk from the middle of the eighteenth century. From the original furnishings, a Gothic large cross from the sixteenth century has been preserved. The side altars are Baroque, from around seventeen hundred. The organ was supplied in nineteen zero nine by the Tuček company from Kutná Hora and still plays today.

The church had two bells. The first was confiscated for war purposes in nineteen sixteen. The second bell from seventeen sixty-five was confiscated in nineteen forty-two. After the war, however, it was found in Prague and returned to the tower.

The church stands in the middle of the former cemetery and is surrounded by a wall. In its southern part is an entrance gate and a Tuscan column with an iron cross from the middle of the nineteenth century. The last general renovation of the church took place in the years nineteen ninety-two through nineteen ninety-five.