kostel svatého Václava (Kozojedy) Church

The Church of Saint Václav in Kozojedech in the Jičín region belongs to the wooden churches of the Hradec Králové region. It is a subsidiary church of the Roman Catholic parish of Kopidlno and has been a cultural monument since nineteen sixty-four.

The first mentions of the church date back to thirteen sixty-eight. The present building was constructed in sixteen eighty-nine. In seventeen eighteen it underwent repairs, and in eighteen oh three it was plastered. In nineteen thirteen it was reconstructed at the initiative of the Museum Association in Nový Bydžov.

The church is an oriented single-nave wooden structure with a rectangular floor plan and a three-sided chancel. The builders used oak boards that were twenty to twenty-five centimeters thick, about half a meter wide, and up to ten meters long. The steep hipped roof is covered with shingles and bears a sanctus bell turret with a pyramidal roof. The roof trusses extend beyond the walls and rest on wooden corbels decorated with carving. Attached to the north wall of the chancel is a brick square sacristy, and on the south side of the nave is a log-built vestibule.

The interior furnishings are Baroque and date from seventeen eighteen to seventeen twenty-two. The board coffered ceiling of the nave is decorated with colorful painting featuring Renaissance motifs. The gallery is also painted, partially supported by ten columns, as are the pews. The triumphal arch spans five point sixty-five meters and is spanned by a beam bearing a Latin inscription. Within it lies the year sixteen eighty-nine, and in translation it reads: Be merciful, Jesus, to the people who have been redeemed by your suffering.

The main altar from seventeen twenty-two bears statues of Czech patrons and depicts Saint Václav, with an image of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in the upper section. Two side altars from seventeen eighteen display images of Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint John the Baptist. The pulpit from seventeen twenty-two is decorated with carvings of the four evangelists. The organ from the same year was brought here from Chroustov in nineteen sixty-one. Set into the church wall is the epitaph of Václav Stráňovský from fifteen sixty-eight.

Not far from the church stands a thirteen meter high wooden bell tower from sixteen eighty-nine. It is octagonal and tiered, with an angled lower section and a pyramidal shingled roof. Originally it housed three bells. Two were confiscated, and only one bell from sixteen twelve survives.

The church stands in the middle of a cemetery. It is surrounded by a fence wall made of sandstone posts with wooden boards laid between them. There is also an educational trail running around it that connects Vysoké Veselí with the surrounding villages.