Kostel svatého Štěpána (Řitonice) Church

The Roman Catholic parish church of Saint Stephen in Řitonice is a Gothic building that was later transformed by the Baroque style. Since nineteen sixty-seven it has been protected as a cultural monument.

The church was built in the second half of the fourteenth century. It was converted to its Baroque form in sixteen sixty-nine and seventeen oh-nine. The nave was then extended toward the west and received a new facade. At the end of the nineteenth century, in eighteen ninety-seven and eighteen ninety-eight, the church underwent complete restoration. It was newly painted and newly furnished according to Hübsch's design.

The building is rectangular and single-naved. Attached to the nave is a polygonally terminated presbytery, which is the space of the main altar. An oratory adjoins it from the south side, and a sacristy from the north. The most prominent part is the Baroque facade. It is divided into three sections and structured by pilasters that carry entablatures. Above them rises a gable with wings terminated by volutes, which are spiralled curves. In the center of the facade is a stone portal with a triangular gable. On the sides and in the gable are niches with more recent statues. Below stands Saint John of Nepomuk and Saint Joseph, above in the gable stands the Virgin Mary. The statues were created by the Hořice stonemasons' school.

The side walls of the nave are smooth and have rectangular windows arched with a semicircle. On the south side a Gothic profiled portal has been preserved. A sixteenth-century epitaph of the Biberstein family is set into it.

The presbytery is supported from outside by buttresses. Its windows were enlarged in eighteen seventy. Inside it is vaulted with a cross vault with wedge ribs that rest on corbels shaped like baldachins. On the south side there are two-part sedilia, which are seats for priests with pointed arches. On the north side is a niche for storing sacred objects with a pointed gable. The ceiling of the nave dates from sixteen sixty-nine.

The present furnishings are pseudo-Gothic. They were designed again by Hübsch and are dated to nineteen oh-one. From the Baroque furnishings, a statue of an angel on the gallery railing remains. In the church there are also an organ and several epitaphs from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Particular attention is deserved by the figured epitaphs of two children, a boy from sixteen fifty-eight and a girl from sixteen thirty-nine. Another is a Baroque figured epitaph of Rasche of Rizenberg from seventeen ten.