Kostel svatého Prokopa (Loštice) Church

The Church of Saint Prokop in Loštice is a Baroque structure built between 1787 and 1792. However, hidden within its walls is a much older core. The chancel and perimeter walls of the eastern part of the nave date back to the mid-thirteenth century, when a smaller Romanesque church stood here. Its remains were discovered during a facade renovation in 1994.

The first written mention of the church dates from 1396. In the mid-sixteenth century, Prokop Podstatský of Prusinovic, the lord of Bouzov, who also owned Loštice, expanded it to the present-day main nave. At that time, a four-sided tower still stood separately next to the church. This is how it appears in the oldest depiction on the title page of the Loštice parish register from 1650. The Baroque reconstruction then expanded the church to its current form and incorporated the tower into the facade. It measures 45 metres.

The church has passed through the hands of various denominations. According to a record by parish priest Jan Pudil from 1771, it first served Catholics, then from 1546 the Czech Brethren, from 1587 Protestants, and from 1624 Catholics again.

The building bears traces of several architectural styles. From the Romanesque period, typical ribbed masonry and red-painted windows have been preserved. The presbytery with its right-angled termination is Gothic, and the capitals of pilasters in the attic storey are Renaissance.

In the vestibule are placed Renaissance tombstones of Prokop Podstatský, who died in 1560, and his wife Kateřina from the Kropáč family of Nevědomí, who died four years later. Opposite them is a heraldic tombstone of Anna Barbara, daughter of Zigmund Půhončí of Předmostí, placed there in 1940. She died in 1682, at the age of two.

The main marble altar from 1852 was created by local master Cyril Kutzer. It is adorned with a painting of Saint Prokop by František Havelka, a native of Loštice, and wooden statues of Saint Cyril and Methodius in life size. Among the side altars, worth mentioning is the painting of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, painted in 1746 by Felix Anton Scheffler. The pulpit from 1810 was carved by Brno woodcarver Ondřej Schweigel.

Rare are four wall paintings of the Stations of the Cross from the early seventeenth century, removed in 1957 from the attic walls. They were paid for by local guilds of tailors, potters, weavers, and butchers. Their coats of arms are still visible at the lower edge of the paintings.

Around the church extends the former cemetery with a retaining wall and balustrade. It features a classicist stone cross from 1801, an Empire-style tombstone of Rosalie Dworzakowa from 1829, and a statue of the Virgin Mary on a pillar. The church has been a cultural monument since 1964.